


Problematic Rescue

by Orabla



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Character Development, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gang Rape, Humiliation, Hurt Jim, Hurt Spock, Hurt!Kirk, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Kirk Whump, Love Confessions, M/M, Physical Abuse, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Rape Aftermath, Sexual Abuse, Torture, discovering love, ignores Beyond, k/s - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28636929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orabla/pseuds/Orabla
Summary: After a diplomatic mission gone wrong, Kirk and Spock are left for dead, bound and injured, without the Enterprise within range to save them. By sheer chance, they are spotted by Orion slavers, who, however, are only interested in saving Spock, for whom they have a buyer. To convince them to take Kirk as well (thus saving his life), Spock must advertise him to the Orions in the only way that they will listen, but that could end up being worse than death... Will the two friends manage to find a way to repair the harm caused by this problematic rescue? In the middle of violence and cruelty, will they be able to forgive each other and finally understand that what they are feeling for each other is more than friendship?
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Others, James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	Problematic Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rather angsty story, the characters get brutally mistreated and spend much of the time suffering different forms of abuse, and I think three or four scenes can be considered as rather graphic, so please don't read unless this is what you like (in which case, please read, enjoy and comment!). There is also some actual plot, much talking about feelings, character growth, introspection (shown mostly in dialogue, but there's some direct emotional analysis as well) and, especially by the end, lots of sap, love confessions etc.   
> Please note that I'm a beginner and not an English native speaker, so please forgive all the mistakes that you will find!

PROBLEMATIC RESCUE

Once more, Spock tried to review in his head all the events that, during the past two days, had led to his and Kirk’s present misery, trying to figure out what had gone wrong – task as futile as trying to find any means of escaping it. The pain was pushing at his mental shields, strained by overuse, but Spock was still able to keep it from breaking them and assaulting his awareness, perhaps rendering him unable to think. Although he couldn’t see Kirk, he was certain that the captain was unconscious, as the last two hours had passed without as much as a moan from him. Perhaps it was a mercy, since there wasn’t any hope for them anyway, although the why of this particular catastrophe – the one that would cause their deaths – kept eluding Spock. So, as per Starfleet orders, they had beamed down to Annaris B to try and establish some sort of relationship with the flagrantly non-humanoid, obviously intelligent and more or less civilized race that inhabited this small, bad-weathered world close to the Federation territory. Despite the non-contact policy, the Annari had been contacted before by Federation ships, due to irreversible mistakes in hiding previous exploration parties, who therefore ended up having to present themselves. Since the Annari had seemed friendly enough, the Federation decided to try and make contacts official. Due to those previous fortuitous contacts, their culture and language were seemingly no more a total mystery for the Federation, but obviously, something must have gone amiss. Appointed as temporary ambassadors, two days before, armed with the newest achievement of the Federation linguists, very compact translation chips implanted behind their left ear, directly connected to their brains and programmed to translate back and forth all languages known to the Federation, Kirk and Spock beamed down to the coordinates given to them by the planet’s rulers. They were received in what seemed a friendly manner by several colorful, shapeless blobs of plasma, somehow producing sounds that the chip recognized as language and translated as a formal greeting and an invitation to share a meal and discuss conditions of a preliminary trade treaty. They followed their hosts to a clearing in the native jungle of purple-colored trees, and the blobs dropped to the grass, placing themselves front to the local star, Annar, their bodies seeming to capture its light, ostensibly in order to feed. However, the locals seemed by now sufficiently knowledgeable about their guests’ anatomy to offer them a selection of colorful fruit, served without any dishes directly upon the grass in front of them, but perfectly palatable. Mostly Kirk did the talking, and they directed most of their attention at him, as he had presented himself as the leader. Sometimes Kirk had some trouble with interpreting the answers that the natives gave them, because although translated into Standard, they seemed to make little sense; that was, however, a frequent problem when dealing with a new culture, and Kirk had some experience with tactful requests for clarification or extremely cautious attempts at paraphrasing. It seemed to be going well, on the whole, until the weather suddenly deteriorated, and it turned out that the only available shelter was the jungle, since the blobs didn’t need any sort of shelter against the rage of the elements, and didn’t construct any buildings. Kirk thought it would be more prudent to go back to the ship, and wanted to hail it, but surprisingly enough, was hailed first by Scotty. It turned out that the Enterprise had just picked a priority one SOS signal, and was the only ship available in the region at the moment. Kirk hesitated, but it turned out that the ion storm raging above the planet made it impossible to either beam them up or send a shuttle to pick them up. So, Kirk had no choice but to send the Enterprise on its way to respond to the signal, while he and Spock would be on their own for a week at the very least. Since the natives were friendly, it didn’t seem to be much of a problem. Although distressed by the wind, rain and cold, the two officers resumed the talks that the natives continued unperturbed, having seemingly paid no attention to the communication. However, after no more than half an hour, they suddenly changed their minds. Without a single word of explanation, they suddenly announced that the Federation had mocked them cruelly, that a horrible price was to be paid for the offence and that Kirk and Spock were about to pay it. They didn’t stand a chance at defending themselves: they were overpowered before they even realized that the threat was real, rather than some eccentricity of the translator insufficiently familiarized with the exotic language.   
Spock sighed heavily as he recalled what the Annari had referred to as their “execution”. They were bound with some vegetal fibres, beaten with different sorts of sticks and whips causing various degrees of damage, and cut with what looked like discs of polished stones. During most of this time, Kirk tried to talk the Annari out of killing them, by swearing on all that’s sacred that they had no idea of any offense, promising to take care of it once he knew what it was, and ultimately, promising terrible revenge on the part of the Federation. Spock was contemplating with considerable appreciation the captain’s capacity to build sophisticated, intricate and persuasive speeches while being beaten and cut, but he had no idea how he could contribute, as neither he could figure out what their offence seemed to be. Finally, Kirk succumbed to the pain, and when reiterated brutalities reached areas of his body that were already battered, he couldn’t stifle screams, and his diplomacy gave way to an untranslatable stream of profanity. Spock was anxious for his wellbeing, because the Annari, having understood that he was the leader, concentrated most of their efforts on him. Human constitution being, in addition, considerably weaker than Vulcan, Spock heard on several occasions the characteristic crack of a broken bone, and the sounds of pain that Kirk was making, resistant as he usually was, hinted at serious injuries. When at the long last, the Annari seemed to be through with them, they bound them very thoroughly into fetal position, dragged them mercilessly through the jungle for what Spock estimated to be three and a half long miles, then gagged and blindfolded them, and finally suspended them in an incredibly uncomfortable position from two different trees. The Annari leader said, once again, how outraged he or she was by the Federation’s betrayal, and wished them unpleasant dying from blood loss, unhealed injuries, and dehydration. At that, everybody departed and they were left alone, unable to communicate or even to see each other. Spock, although exhausted by the ordeal and experiencing some difficulties in managing pain from the bruises and cuts that adorned his naked body, was still feeling relatively fit: he didn’t have any broken bones, the bruising didn’t seem to go beyond the muscles, and most cuts seemed pretty superficial. He summoned all his Vulcan strength to try and break the ropes, but, struggle as he might, they didn’t even give one centimeter length, not to mention weakening or breaking; the best he achieved was cutting his flesh against them. He tried repeatedly over a considerable period of time, knowing that his strength was his and Kirk’s only chance at survival, but it proved completely futile, and he finally ended up depleting his reserves, and dangling helpless on the unscathed ropes, contemplating impending death, that he suspected would be slow and painful. The only sign that Kirk was still alive were his moans, becoming increasingly rare as the time went by and the captain weakened, and finally, for two hours now, he was silent.  
Resigned to the inevitable, trying to clear his mind before he died, Spock found it very difficult to meditate. He craved to at least be able to speak to the captain, to tell him some things that he had never judged urgent enough to say. Perhaps it was illogical to wish for something that couldn’t change their situation any more or prolong their lives, but still, he felt it was unfair that Kirk wouldn’t know how important he had become to him. If he wanted to be honest, Spock was uncertain if Kirk had even come to realize that Spock, in his Vulcan way, cared for him at all. Maybe what he remembered most were the unfortunate beginnings of their relationship: the hearing over the Kobayashi Maru, during which Spock had the cruelty of shaming Kirk by mentioning his father’s death; his ruthlessness on the Enterprise, especially when he marooned an already exhausted and battered Kirk on a planet that had very nearly killed him, only for being right; the infamous moment when he beat him to a pulp on the bridge, nearly choking him to death, while all Kirk was trying to do was to save another planet from sharing Vulcan’s unspeakable fate; his oh, so truthful and righteous report, in which he repaid Kirk for saving his life on the Nibiru by leading to the loss of his command, to a humiliation, to the excruciating feeling that Admiral Pike died disappointed in him… Spock’s faults against Kirk, who had always tried to help and support him, had been so numerous that the Vulcan had justified doubts about how the human felt about him. He always acted friendly, but was he aware that his friendship was fully reciprocated, and that he had gained himself respect and loyalty that nothing could break? Not even death… Spock briefly remembered Khan, and the dreadful moment when Kirk, separated from him by the transparent door, slowly died, his body devastated by enormous doses of radiation. The emotional pain had been so unbearable that it made Spock realize that Kirk had come to mean to him much more than he had thought possible. And yet, he was completely helpless, utterly unable to save him – more, he nearly destroyed Kirk’s only chance at returning to the world of living by almost murdering Khan… It was McCoy who really saved Kirk, who devised the cure, produced it, made it work. At least now, the situation was so much better that Spock was trapped the same as Kirk. Although he was sure his captain would die much sooner than himself, he was also sure he would follow, and it was a consolation. The mere possibility of remaining in a world without his planet, without his mother, and also without Kirk, did not bear thinking about.   
However, unexpectedly, Spock was pulled out of his musings. However silent for the moment, with his exceptional senses he caught sounds that were certainly not produced naturally by the jungle. He heard creatures approaching, distinct, heavy thuds suggesting beings making actual steps for walking, while the Annari rolled evenly, barely touching the ground. After a few more moments, the creatures started talking, and the translating chip informed him that the language spoken was Orion. ‘Most peculiar’, Spock thought, completely stunned: the Federation believed generally that, except for several random first contacts with their own ships, Annaris B was still a virgin world, inhabited only by its insulated population. They must have been wrong.  
“Captain, did we really have to lock orbit over this cursed shitty planet, of all the planets of the universe?”, one voice was saying, sounding irritated. The translator had no problem rendering his words to the letter, because the Orion was a language known perfectly well – much too well – to the Federation. “Not only is it all covered with useless jungle: its population are unpredictable crazies, and finding arh’ann during just a short trek seems like a fucking miracle…”  
“Will you stop complaining, V’Nress?”, the captain asked, but he sounded more amused than upset with the crewman. “We have repairs to make, and a short stop was in order, for all the engines to be restarted. Would you rather we stopped in full space, sitting duck at some Starfleet trail? Annaris B is a hellhole no one, not even this nosy Federation, is interested in… The engines get a quick once-over, we get to breath fresh air, and if we get lucky and find some arh’ann, well, that’s always a bonus…”  
“But the weather’s shitty here. Before we know it, an ion storm can form right above us…”  
“There was one, two days ago, our sensors told us, and a long and violent one. They normally don’t happen more often than every five, six days… It shouldn’t rain, either, all’s wet and apparently… Oh, I’ve just been hit with a drop… wait…”  
“It must have been rain water from the trees, Captain”, V’Nress answered.  
“Then… why is it green?”, the captain asked, amazed. They looked up and Spock was treated to several gasps of utter surprise. “May the holy hell come here and get me”, the Orion captain swore after a while. “What kind of display may that be? I’ll be damned if it’s not a Vulcan hanging here! And a human, judging by the disgusting red he’s covered with…”  
“Seems like they made the Annari mad”, V’Nress hypothesized. “But what were they doing here in the first place?”  
“We’ll find out soon enough, if they’re still alive. The Vulcan doesn’t seem badly damaged, but it’s hard to tell from here”, the captain answered decisively. A click of a communicating device was heard and he continued: “T’Rann to Venora…”  
“Yes, Captain, L’Vorr here”, another crewmember responded.   
“Lock on to my coordinates and beam down here N’Drell, with his medical kit…”  
“Are you injured, sir?”, L’Vorr inquired anxiously.  
“No no, we’re all right. But we found some very interesting prey who’s not…”  
“Yes, sir, immediately. Venora out”, was the answer, and the communication was terminated. Spock could hear nothing but some moving around for several moments, and then suddenly the rope on which he was suspended was gently lowered all the way to the grass. When the blindfold was removed, Spock gazed straight into the faces of two green-skinned, male, middle-aged, colorfully-dressed individuals bent over him and staring at him intently. He blinked, and rubbed his head against his shoulder, to disable the translating chip: otherwise his speech would be understood by the Orions as their native tongue, and Spock didn’t care to tell them about the chip, or to be forced to explain how and why he had learnt the Orion language to perfection. Fortunately, the device would still translate the speech for him, only refraining from translating his own words to others. Suddenly, he was quite glad that both himself and the captain had been completely stripped by the Annari: he knew that betraying their Starfleet membership to Orions would automatically mean selling them to either the Klingons or the Romulans, whoever bode higher, with equally disastrous consequences. Before his rescuers addressed him as much as a word, Spock twisted his head to look at Kirk, who was still dangling as the Annari had left him, unconscious. The puddle of red in the dust beneath him didn’t bode well, and, being unable to notice breathing or other life signs from such distance, Spock could only hope Kirk was still alive. Spock’s gag was carefully removed, and when he coughed, one of the Orions poured several drops of some liquid into his parched mouth.   
“Thank you”, Spock said in Standard. The air around buzzed and tingled, and a third Orion materialized right behind them. He was older than the captain and his companion, but still not quite old, and was obviously a member of medical staff. He approached and also bent over Spock, waving a medical tricorder all over his body.  
“Well, N’Drell?”, Captain T’Rann asked him.   
“He’s bruised and dehydrated, but his wounds are nothing more than scratches. He will live”, the doctor declared. He produced a bottle of water, and Spock drank greedily. “You may cut the ropes, but the blood rushing back to his limbs will cause him a great deal of pain…”  
“I know that perfectly well”, the Orion captain responded irritably, and started cutting the ropes.  
“Oh yes, I’m aware you’re familiar with anything that causes pain”, the doctor commented with a knowing smile. When he felt himself unrestrained, Spock tried to straighten his limbs, but the pain was so excruciating that he was able to move only an inch at a time, and even then, it took all his resolve to stiffen moans or keep a relatively impassive face.   
“He’s suffering. Do I give him a painkiller, Captain? If you wish to speak to him, that would help a lot”, the doctor pointed out. T’Rann nodded his agreement and motioned for him to proceed, and a hypo hissed unpleasantly against Spock’s neck. The effect, fortunately, was immediate, and the pain abated to tolerable levels.   
“Slow! Don’t move too quickly at once. Let your muscles adjust to the renewed blood flow”, N’Drell told Spock in slightly accented Standard. He nodded, and very carefully, inch by inch, continued the painful process of straightening his limbs.   
“My human friend… can you please check how he is?...”, he dared ask, when the Orions continued staring at him and made no sign of freeing Kirk.  
“I’m asking questions here”, T’Rann barked, and he motioned for V’Nress, who pointed a phaser at Spock. “Since you’re obviously fit for conversations, you’re gonna answer me now. If you try anything – and I mean a-ny-thing, my navigator shoots your ass dead, do you understand?”  
“Yes”, Spock confirmed, sparing the weapon an inconspicuous glance before shyly returning to the previous subject: “My friend was injured more seriously than I… If you don’t take care of him now, he might…” He was stopped by a violent slap to the face.  
“You won’t tell me what to do”, T’Rann coldly explained. “My first question: who are you and what are you doing on Annaris B? If I’m satisfied with your answers, then maybe – just maybe – I’ll tell my doctor to look at the human.”  
Spock briefly considered refusing cooperation unless Kirk was attended to, but a logical analysis of T’Rann’s behavior told him that the Orion didn’t like being antagonized, and an attempt at blackmail could end up with V’Nress shooting to death the object of the bargain. As a Vulcan, Spock loathed offending ethical principles by lying, but in this case, he was bound not only by simple preservation instinct, but also by Starfleet policies: deliberately admitting Starfleet membership and an important rank to enemies such as Orions, who would no doubt pass him secretly to people who would know better how to extract his knowledge and put it to vicious use, was not only pure madness, but also jeopardizing the safety of the Federation. A lie then it had to be.  
“We came on a private trading ship, the Lausanne”, Spock answered, eyeing T’Rann with mostly pretended apprehension. “It was our understanding that Annaris B had not yet been visited by species from the outside, and we only wanted to reconnoiter… to see if there would be way to sell or buy anything valuable from the local population. We were unaware that the Annari were so… unlike humanoids. We were spotted and cruelly mistreated, then left for dead bound as you found us. I hoped the Lausanne would retrieve us, but there had been an ion storm, and they must have broken orbit to protect themselves.”  
“Coming here to trade goods was the most foolish thing you could have done”, T’Rann commented. “The locals are not only primitive and don’t have anything of value, but they’re also completely irrational… But you already know that.”  
“Not really, sir”, Spock answered. “We must have seemed really strange to them, it’s no wonder if they took us for danger to be eliminated. I agree, though, that our action was foolish, and we paid dearly for our clumsiness.”   
“What was a Vulcan doing on a human trading ship?”, V’Nress contributed.  
“It wasn’t only human”, Spock answered defensively.  
“A Vulcan on a multiracial trading ship? On any trading ship? Please”, N’Drell snorted. By fear of being exposed, Spock provided a dramatic explanation that had all the chances of being believed, because it was partially true.  
“I’m… I’m not really a Vulcan. I’m half human. I was disdained on my planet, treated like a useless half-breed… For humans, though, I’m a sort of superman. I had thought…” he let his voice trail off and shrugged.   
“Is it possible?”, T’Rann asked the doctor in Orion, so Spock chose to pretend he didn’t understand. All three Orions looked amazed.  
“I don’t know”, N’Drell reluctantly admitted. “It has never been tried that I know of, but other interspecies hybrids exist, so I basically see no reason why, with proper medical assistance, a Vulcan-human hybrid couldn’t be conceived. A simple DNA test would tell us whether he told the truth, but I’m inclined to believe him.”  
“Well”, T’Rann mused, getting up and smiling with obvious contentment, “if he really is that, then he’s a real rarity, and a still greater prize than a full Vulcan would be. I know of a buyer who would pay any kind of money to be able to experiment on such a find… Let’s get him to the ship, and if the engines are already operational, let’s break orbit.” Spock was listening to the conversation, terrified. They never mentioned doing anything about Kirk. N’Drell also noticed that.  
“What about the human?”, he asked T’Rann. “If we leave him here like this, he’ll most likely die before the end of the day.”  
“Let him”, T’Rann answered idly. “Humans are of little value, and they’re always loads of trouble. Quarrelsome, proud, always know better, never cooperate, and stupid… We’d only be expanding our efforts with little hope for compensation. He must be dying anyway, if those puddles of blood are any indication.”  
“Sir!”, Spock exclaimed urgently, this time scared to the core. The Orions, although they were pirates, slavers, saboteurs, and trouble in general, were now Kirk’s only chance to survive. Whatever they would decide to do to him later was less important than his present imminent death. “Please take my friend as well!”, he pleaded. “You will not regret it: he is very smart, hard-working and resourceful, and he will certainly not cause you any trouble…”  
“Well”, T’Rann answered maliciously, “the traits that you’ve just mentioned usually mean exactly that: trouble. We’re not taking him, and that’s final.”  
“He was an engineer on our ship, he knows much about astronomy, navigation…”, Spock tried desperately, but all the three Orions burst out laughing.  
“I see that you’re a good and loyal friend, half-breed”, T’Rann told him mockingly, “but your arguments are ridiculous. What knowledge could an engineer or a navigator from a puny private trading ship, unable to withstand an ion storm, possibly offer aboard an Orion vessel?... The Venora has crossed the galaxy several times over, has done things you vile merchants have no idea about, and there are no skills or knowledge you could possibly offer us… A human could be only of value if he were Starfleet, or if he were very pretty. Then we could sell him to some illegal joy house well distant from the Federation borders, not without taking some pleasure at breaking him first…” At this, the Orions chuckled cruelly again. T’Rann spoke into the communicator requesting beam out for four, but his words planted a certain idea in Spock’s head. It was an awful, a horrible idea, one that Spock knew he would come to regret bitterly, but he realized that the moment they went off without Kirk, he was as good as dead. Since there wasn’t time for much deliberation, Spock made up his mind immediately and gave his rescuers his best imitation of a mocking half-smile.  
“You are saying he could be of some value if he was pretty… Have you taken the trouble of looking at him? Because, even though the Lausanne is only a trading ship and hardly travelled as far as you, I can tell you this: wherever it has gone, my friend has always enjoyed immense success and never complained about lack of company. Also, never once have I heard any of his countless adventures, male or female, express anything but full satisfaction after the encounter.”  
Now, Spock suddenly had their full attention. Their eyes shone with excitement, and their faces took on an ugly, greedy expression. He felt a pang of revulsion, shame at what he was doing, but he mastered those feelings immediately. Since this course of action was finally producing some effect, it was logical to follow it, regardless of the pain that its realization would most certainly bring. Any pain was more acceptable to Spock than the pain of Kirk’s death. Having experienced it once, he knew that reliving it would destroy him.   
“What about you?” T’Rann asked. “Were you his lover? That would explain your attitude…”  
“Vulcans do not engage in fortuitous sexual contacts”, Spock said disdainfully. “But Jim is very promiscuous… He never missed an occasion for perfecting his skills.”  
“Jim? That’s his name? What’s yours?”, V’Nress asked, bounding Spock’s wrists behind him while waiting for the answer. Spock bit his lip. He could have used another name, but was so busy thinking about his grueling scheme that his mind had simply slipped on this one. But Jim was a very common first name, so no real harm was done. He thought about at least disguising his own name, but decided against it: while coming round, before recovering his senses fully, it was logical to expect that Kirk would call him by his name, and it would be difficult to lie out of the situation later.  
“Spock”, he obliged. The three Orions merely registered the presentation, all busy now ogling his captain, naked, bruised and bloody, still suspended above them bound into a fetal position, with his face obscured by the gag and the blindfold. Without waiting for orders, V’Nress located the end of the rope, took hold of it and carefully lowered the human to the ground. He pointed his phaser at Spock again, while the other two gently uncovered Kirk’s face and wiped away the blood and dirt which were smearing it all over. They looked in silent admiration at the youthful features, now pale and drawn, but eerily calm in their unconsciousness, at the full, sensual lips, parted slightly and cracked from thirst, at the lashes so long that they were leaving long trembling shadows on the silky cheeks. There was nothing disinterested in their admiration, and soon enough they were staring at his entire body, bound as it was, touching, pinching and stroking with approving grunts those parts of it which they could access. Illogically, Spock suddenly felt a most peculiar reaction in his own body at this appalling sight: a burning wave of heat, like a fever, that radiated directly from his groin, causing him to tremble, and his manhood to harden. Being a Vulcan, he could control his arousal, and willed it to abate before the Orions could notice, busy as they were inspecting Kirk. Devastated by what he was witnessing, as well as by his own reaction, Spock wished that he could take his words back, or that the captain were too injured to ever open his eyes again, and understand how cruelly he had been betrayed, and by whom? By his second in command, bound to protect him and care for him…  
“Well, Vulcan… Spock, was it? You didn’t lie about his looks: he is indeed of rare beauty for a human male! I hope you also told the truth about his talents”, T’Rann finally said, licking his lips with anticipated enjoyment. “What’s his condition, N’Drell? Will he live?”  
“It’s hard to tell. I can’t examine him properly when he’s bound like this… I can tell you he lost tons of blood and is badly dehydrated, but that’s easily taken care of on the Venora: we don’t have human blood, but a universal artificial substitute can be manufactured in no time.”  
“Unbind him, then, and check for other injuries. I’m not taking him unless you can soon make him fit for… some fun.”   
“Yeah… however, I must warn you, returning blood circulation will cause extreme pain…”  
“Why do you think I mind?”  
“Well, he’s injured, such extreme pain causes further strain to the heart, to the organism…”  
“All right. Too bad. A painkiller, then.”  
“Wait!”, Spock exclaimed when the doctor wielded a hypo. “He’s allergic… to most medication. There are only two groups of analgesics that will not cause anaphylaxis…” Spock realized he had just missed another chance of freeing his captain from the hell he had prepared for him. Anaphylactic shock was a painful, but quite quick death, that Kirk might find preferable to what was in store for him if he lived.  
“Which are?...” N’Drell inquired. Spock recited them without missing a beat. A part of him wanted him to be able to lie, to say the wrong meds and see the captain die rather than become the Orions’ toy, but a larger part just desperately wanted him alive.   
“Shit, I don’t have those”, N’Drell complained, but he put the hypo away and started cutting the ropes anyway. The agony of returning circulation suddenly jerked Kirk awake. He came to with a scream, his huge, bright blue eyes shooting wide open. He screamed on and on as his uncramping muscles brutally protested against the treatment, but Spock noticed that he was already looking around intently, trying to take stock of his situation despite the agony. When he caught Kirk’s eye, he made him a discreet sign with lifted eyebrows, inconspicuously lifting his shoulder toward his face. Kirk understood, and proved it immediately by imitating the gesture to disable the active part of the translating chip. His move was very clumsy, and he never stopped screaming, but he managed to reach his objective.  
“Easy”, N’Drell told him in Standard. “Try to move only one limb at a time, and very slowly. I’ll do my best to help”, he added, initiating a gentle massage of one of Kirk’s arms to help the muscles adjust. Spock felt V’Nress’s phaser pressed against his back. ‘They are very cautious’, he thought. ‘With Jim conscious, there is only one more of them than of us – but we are both incapacitated… I am bound, and Jim…’ Kirk finally managed to stop screaming, but he continued moaning incessantly, and his eyes were veiled by tears of sheer agony.  
“He’s very pretty when he’s suffering”, V’Nress breathed into Spock’s ear, his tone low, excited, vicious, and Spock couldn’t repress a shiver. “How about you? When are you the prettiest?”, the Orion purred, pressing the phaser harder against Spock’s back, while his other hand started travelling idly over his naked body, descending lower and lower. Spock tensed against the unwelcome touch and felt a surge of helpless anger at the humiliation. However, he realized that this was absolutely nothing compared to what would happen next – to Kirk, or maybe to both them – unless he found a way to stop it.   
“V’Nress!”, T’Rann called his man in a sharp tone, then continued in a whisper, drowned by the sounds of Kirk’s pain and clearly too silent to reach his ears. “Leave the Vulcan alone, he’s too precious to be wasted as a mere toy. I have a buyer for him who will pay handsomely, but he likes his merchandise in pristine condition.” V’Nress took his hand off of Spock and muttered his agreement. T’Rann turned back to Kirk, and spoke to him in an idle, conversational tone:  
“For a trading vessel, what a ludicrous idea to reconnoiter on an unknown planet, populated by non-humanoids! What would you have sold them, socks for those feet that emerge only when needed from their amorph bodies?”  
“Foolish… indeed…”, Kirk managed to choke out, and the Orions laughed.   
“If you’re as funny as you’re pretty, you’re really worth the trouble”, T’Rann pointed out, and Kirk looked slightly destabilized by the remark. “Well, Doctor? Will he make it?”  
N’Drell smiled from over his tricorder.  
“Oh yes, he most definitely will. He’s quite strong, and his injuries are nothing I couldn’t fix. He has several broken ribs, a punctured lung, bruised kidneys and ruptured spleen. Without help, he was dead in an hour, but once on the Venora, he’ll be running around in three days’ time.”  
“Well then, we’d better get going. T’Rann to Venora…”  
“L’Vorr here, sir.”  
“Patch me through to engineering.”  
“Yes, sir.”  
After a moment of silence, there was a female voice responding:  
“Rinsha here. What can I do for the captain?”  
“Are we good to go, honey?”, T’Rann asked.  
“As good as we will be”, she answered with a sigh. “But we could use some spare dilithium. One of our crystals is… not exactly broken, but it does seem to have micro fissures in its internal structure. It’ll do, but it’s hardly reliable.”  
“We’ll make sure to get one as soon as we can”, T’Rann promised. “We found some very nice prey, sweetheart. A little damaged by the Annari, but nothing N’Drell couldn’t fix… I think you’ll like them.”  
“You know that I only care about you”, the woman responded in a low tone of voice, and the captain’s face flushed with pleasure.  
“I know”, he purred, “but a little variety does a couple good… Tell the transporter room to beam up five, whenever they’re ready. And let there be a security team waiting.”  
“I will. See you soon, love. Rinsha out.”  
Several minutes after that, there was a hum and the three Orions and their two captives – one still writhing in pain – dematerialized from the inhospitable surface of Annaris B.

On the ship, the party was greeted by three more Orions pointing phasers at the captives, accompanied by a lovely green-skinned woman, dressed in what looked more like a work suit than the colorful, casual clothes the rest of them were wearing. She smiled at T’Rann and he took her in a brief embrace, kissing her on the lips rather casually, but not without passion, and even a certain tenderness.   
“Look what we found”, he said in Orion, pointing at Spock and Kirk.  
“A Vulcan!”, she exclaimed in surprise, curiously inspecting Spock, her gaze sweeping unashamed over all of his naked body. “He’s pretty, but I bet he’s no fun. Vulcans never are. I think you’ll want to sell him. And the other one? Oh, a human!” She bent over Kirk, curled on the floor, to get a better look. He locked eyes with her briefly, and managed a smile despite the agony that was still coursing through him. She smiled back, then straightened up and stepped back down from the transporting platform. “Whoa, this one’s very pretty”, she commented to T’Rann, still in Orion, “and the humans are very responsive, but he looks seriously injured.”  
“With a little luck, he’ll be fine in no time”, N’Drell offered.  
“Take the Vulcan to the brig, and the human to sickbay”, T’Rann directed, and Spock’s arm was grabbed and pulled. He was unwilling to be separated from his captain, but there was little he could do to resist, so he reluctantly followed the guard.  
“Hey, you Vulcan Spock”, T’Rann called after him in Standard. “If you try anything – and I mean a-ny-thing – your human friend pays it dearly. And you, human Jim: try anything – a-ny-thing – and the Vulcan loses a limb. Is that clear to both of you?”  
Spock nodded, and Jim managed a yes. There wasn’t much to try, anyway: they were injured, ridiculously outnumbered, unarmed while the Orions wielded many different kinds of weapons. When led out of the transporter room and on to the brig, Spock inspected his surroundings carefully. The Venora was clearly a much smaller ship than the Enterprise, but the size alone didn’t mean much: a small vessel could also have good warp capacity and heavy weaponry, thus making a formidable enemy in battle. After crossing a short corridor, they descended two decks with a turbolift, then did some more walking and arrived to a room not unlike the brig on the Enterprise, but much bigger, with several empty cots and a fresher, separated from the rest of the space with merely a thin curtain, but a luxury nonetheless, especially that Spock glimpsed an old-fashioned water shower. The Orion disabled the force field using a panel on the wall, then pushed Spock inside and activated the field again.  
“Choose a cot and have a rest”, he said in Standard, a little stiffly, but not unkindly.   
“Could I have my hands unbound?”, Spock asked, because his wrists, tightly bound behind his back, were causing him discomfort, and he felt new painful cramps forming in his arms.  
“Wasn’t in my orders, but I think N’Drell will pass to see you soon”, the Orion explained, after which he just walked away, leaving Spock alone. After a careful inspection, the Vulcan noticed blinking eyes of cameras in the corners of the room; fortunately, they didn’t seem to be assorted with microphones, so Spock hoped to be able to talk to Kirk when they would bring him in – if they decided to keep them together. His emotions – although still kept firmly in check – were threatening to overflow his weakened defenses. Yes, in a way he was relieved to be on the Venora with Kirk: it meant neither of them was on Annaris B any longer, and their survival there, without help, until the Enterprise was able to come back to retrieve them, was less than improbable. But their situation here was far from enviable: he was a genetic curiosity to be sold in indefinite time to some frightful maniac, collecting and experimenting on sentient beings. On the Venora, however, he was clearly considered as valuable merchandise, and therefore granted some relative safety. Kirk, on the other hand… a cold shiver ran down Spock’s spine as he recalled T’Rann’s words: he was to be sold as an illegal sex slave, after being “broken” and used for fun by the Orions. If Spock couldn’t do anything to stop it – and for the time being, he couldn’t see what it might be – this fate seemed so cruel that he wondered if Kirk wasn’t better off dead on Annaris B. He couldn’t bear the thought that he, himself, was responsible for this situation, although logic told him that he had chosen the best available option. On the other hand, he feared that Kirk would refuse any form of cooperation in his abuse, thus exposing Spock’s former descriptions of him as lies, and would simply end up killed as useless. And if Spock had to choose between Kirk being violated and humiliated and being killed… well, he wasn’t sure what he preferred or which option was more logical.  
He didn’t have much time for reflection. After a mere half hour, he received visitors. T’Rann came to see him, accompanied by N’Drell and V’Nress. The latter was holding a strange circular object in one hand, some colorful clothes in the other.   
“How are you feeling?”, N’Drell asked, waving his tricorder over Spock and frowning. He cut the ropes binding Spock’s hands. “Get dressed”, he said, and Spock obediently put on the clothes that were thrown at him. They were much too flashy for his taste, but otherwise, they were comfortable, and the feel of soft fabric against his skin was a nice change after so much time completely stripped.   
“How is my friend?”, he asked, trying to massage one aching wrist with his other hand.  
“Yes, about him”, N’Drell replied. “I need to operate on him, the sooner the better. You mentioned allergies – do you remember exactly what he’s allergic to? I need to sedate him, but can’t risk anaphylaxis. The time before I do the blood tests, it might be too late. It would help if you remembered, but only if you’re sure…”  
Again, Spock recited all the medicaments Kirk was allergic to, without even taking the time to think. He hadn’t even been aware he knew all these substances by heart – after all, he wasn’t Kirk’s physician… Yet the knowledge was so vital for his friend’s wellbeing that he must have memorized it all subconsciously, because now he didn’t have the slightest doubt. N’Drell nodded as he took notes on a datapad, and then took leave of the other Orions and rushed back to sickbay. Spock had to bite back a fervent entreaty that he take good care of Kirk: as it was, he had already shown his care only too much. Plus, the doctor did seem genuinely interested in ensuring his patient’s wellbeing: Spock had heard that some more savage races operated on injured people without any analgesics at all, not to mention taking the trouble of choosing the best medication. Also, T’Rann’s treatment of Rinsha seemed different from what Spock had heard about the status of Orion women, who allegedly were nothing more than pleasure slaves, and yet the Orion captain seemed truly fond of his female engineer. He suddenly found it hard to believe that these people would be able to harm an innocent stranger so horribly as they had announced. But then, he remembered their reactions when they inspected the unconscious Kirk, trying to decide whether he was worthy of their efforts, and he realized that he was probably indulging in wishful thinking: a typically human error in logic.  
In the meantime, V’Nress produced the circular object he had brought with him, and with one fluid movement put it around Spock’s neck, then closed it somehow. It was light and rather comfortable, but Spock wasn’t fooled as to its nature.  
“This is a shocking collar”, V’Nress informed him. “We have the remote control. If I press a button…” He demonstrated, and Spock cried out in agony, his hands involuntarily tugging at the collar. The Orion pressed the button again and the pain disappeared, but it had been so intense that it left Spock panting. If used on a human, it would likely make him pass out, or at the very least completely incapacitate him. “So, you see. It’s a perfectly harmless pulse, but the pain is so severe that it strains the entire organism, and no one is able to withstand it for a long time. Your friend will be fitted with a similar one, so really, don’t try anything stupid. Don’t try to open it, either, because it can’t be done without the key, and you’ll trigger the alarm, which, I assure you, is… painful.”  
“I do not see why you need to resort to such methods, while I am confined to a brig cut off with a force field from the rest of the ship”, Spock observed dryly. T’Rann smiled appreciatively, then answered in a playful tone:  
“Well, the brig is perfectly safe, but I’m not sure if I’ll let you stay here all the way to our buyer. You may be occasionally needed elsewhere… It’s always better to be safe than sorry, especially with a smartass Vulcan and a sneaky human… I’m not planning on using you for pleasure, but maybe you could watch, or play some other role…” His eyes, as well as V’Nress’s, lightened up with a vicious air of greed, and this predatory expression transformed the aliens’ looks completely: they now resembled more wild animals than reasonable, sensible persons. Clearly appreciating the impression they thought they made on the Vulcan, they started toward the exit, but suddenly Spock called after them:  
“T’Rann!”, he said, “there is something I wish to speak to you about.”  
“Yes?” The Orion seemed curious, if a little mocking. He half turned into Spock’s direction and waited impatiently.  
“It’s about my friend. What I told you about his talents…” Spock hesitated. He wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing; he hated what he was doing, but as well his commitment to logic as his innermost feelings told him that whatever the means, he should first and foremost ensure Kirk’s survival.  
“Just don’t tell me that you lied, now that I had him treated”, T’Rann snorted.  
“No… but… although he enjoys casual adventures, I don’t think he will be willing to entertain any of you in any way.”  
“Oh?”  
“He… he is a very proud person. I do not think he will appreciate being compelled…”  
“I see. Well, I guess he will get to taste his collar…”  
“I do not think that will help.” Spock was almost whispering. He received the reply that he had anticipated:  
“Well, there are things that we can take by force, and we will. But without any cooperation on his part, it will soon become boring, and then I can think of only one way for this to end: if he doesn’t break, he will die.”   
“I… I know of a way that could ensure you his cooperation right from the start”, Spock said even quieter. He now got full attention of the Orions. Cursing himself and the logic, he nevertheless continued: “He is very stubborn, and can endure any sort of torture, but there is a thing he will not tolerate. If you threaten me instead of him, give me several shocks with this collar, he will do anything you’ll demand. He doesn’t know that you have a generous buyer in store for me; there’s no reason why he wouldn’t believe I’m in danger of death.”  
“I see”, said T’Rann slowly. “You’re telling me he cares more about your life than his own? And more than about his dignity?” Spock nodded unhappily. There he was, traitor again. Not only did he advertise Kirk to those savage Orions as a perfect toy, but he was giving them a key to compel him to fulfill whatever distasteful requests they would make of him. “You seem to really care that we should be satisfied, Vulcan…”  
“I only wish for him to live”, Spock replied through clenched throat.   
“Yes…”, said T’Rann thoughtfully. “You’re a very good friend indeed”, he added, and the look in his eyes clearly showed that he knew perfectly well how cruel his compliment was. With a brief chuckle, he motioned for his companion to follow and they left, activating the force field behind them. 

The next three days were very difficult for Spock, although admittedly, not really difficult compared to what was to happen later. He was alone all the time, left to think about what he had done to Kirk and what the consequences might be. He tried intensely to concentrate on possibilities for escape, but the more he thought, the more hopeless it seemed. He was fed twice a day, but the guards would just open a small window in the forcefield and push the food through without speaking to him at all, ignoring his desperate attempts at learning what progress his friend was making in his recovery from the Annari’s punishment. There was one exception, however. On the second day, he was visited by Rinsha, who entered the brig with a tray of food and sat down next to him on his cot.   
“Bon appetit”, she said, handling him the tray. He took a few bites of a slice of bread, and then cast her a pleading glance, as best he could manage one. “Can I help you?”, she asked, staring back.  
“My friend… is he all right?”  
“The human? The surgery was successful. N’Drell managed to mend his bones, regenerate the torn and bruised skin, and he’s all pink and pretty again. But there’s still something that needs healing; it’s called spleen, I think. But that will be fixed pretty soon. I talked to your friend, some. He’s very nice. He asked about you. I told him you were fine, and that you would talk more when he joined you in the brig. You know what’s funny? He didn’t remember the name of this ship you were on. So I told him you said it was Lausanne, and it sounded familiar. He most likely also suffered some head trauma.”  
Spock didn’t know what to think. She could be simply telling the truth, but just as well, she could be subtly signaling Spock that she noticed the lie about the Lausanne; that could be some sort of warning, blackmail, or maybe… Would she be willing to help? After all, she told Kirk the name of the ship that Spock had given, rather than try to report the strange lapse in Kirk’s memory to T’Rann.  
“What will happen to him?”, asked Spock, to buy some time and try to understand her intentions better.  
“Oh, but I think you know”, she answered, and he could swear there was sadness in her voice. “They will all fuck him until he doesn’t remember who he is anymore. Then eventually, they’ll be bored with him, and they’ll sell him to some illegal brothel far from the Federation territory. They are already all excited about the first part.”  
“Do you… do you approve?”, Spock asked quietly.  
“They saved his life, so it’s theirs to use as they wish”, she answered without hesitation, with a shrug, but she sounded insincere, regretful.   
“You do not agree with this”, Spock noticed gently.  
“Who cares what I think? Are you still eating, or can I take that away?”  
“T’Rann, he seems fond of you… Maybe you could…” Spock suggested shyly, but was cut off by a burst of laughter: dark, bitter laughter, but not cruel or mocking like the other Orions’.  
“What can a Vulcan know about being fond of someone?”, she asked, and was granted a look in return that made her reconsider. “Maybe you do know…”, she said thoughtfully. “All right. Know this: I don’t have any influence on T’Rann, whatsoever. And even if I did, even T’Rann couldn’t refuse your human friend to the others, because he has already promised them the fun, and they can hardly wait. Hey, it’s not every day we come across soft pink blue-eyed humans bleeding out on a foreign planet, for us to harvest.” If she wanted to sound cynical, she succeeded, but the regret in her voice undermined the sarcasm. Spock didn’t dare to insist, and handed her back the tray. “You will see him soon”, she announced, and left the brig.  
On the evening of the following day, two Orions whose names were unknown to Spock came to the brig and led him out. After a short walk across the corridors and one ride in a turbolift, they approached an area that stuck out as particularly noisy: Spock could hear laughs and talks before the translating chip could distinguish actual speech. Before they entered the crowded room, Spock read an Orion word that the device translated for him as “recreation hall”. His guards somehow managed to push him to the center of the gathered crowd, and his eyes were instantly riveted on the person who had been the object of his worry for the past days. Kirk was stark naked, kept forcibly on his knees by two individuals, struggling and swearing while his eyes were shooting flames of anger, outrage and defiance. He seemed cured from any marks of Annaris B, but his face was extremely pale and he was shaking and panting, which brought Spock to think that maybe his collar had already been activated, without any damage to his spirit. When Kirk noticed Spock, his pallor was covered by a sudden intense blush of shame, even as he cast the Vulcan an anxious look.   
“So, human, here’s the deal”, T’Rann told Kirk. “Your Vulcan friend here told us you had as much experience as you had talent.” Kirk glared at Spock, who remained impassive. “We’d like to sample this talent, and if we’re not satisfied, it means that the Vulcan lied. And since no one lies to T’Rann, it means that he will die. Here, just so you know that I’m serious…” He activated Spock’s collar and for once, for the sake of persuasion, Spock did nothing to conceal the agony it made him feel.   
“Don’t! Stop!”, Kirk yelled, and the device was disabled.   
“I take it you prefer him to live”, T’Rann said, approaching and, without a warning, he took out his cock, green and completely hard, in an obscene gesture. “But if you want him to live, remember it’s not enough to just open this pretty mouth of yours… Oh no, I really want a sample of your talents. Licking, sucking, I want to see that you try very hard to please me… Because if I’m not pleased, your friend will be no more.”  
“You won’t… you can’t…”, Kirk choked out, staring at the alien member pressing against his face with unrepressed disgust, his internal fight almost physically obvious in his contorted features, his gaze switching between defiance and apprehension.   
“I see I haven’t convinced you”, T’Rann said, reaching for the remote control again. Spock could see that he was becoming impatient.  
“No, no, don’t, I’ll do what you want”, Kirk protested quickly. Defiance disappeared from his expression, and it was apparent to Spock that he had reached the only decision that would keep him alive for the time being.   
“Oh, really?”, T’Rann asked mockingly, locking a malicious gaze with Kirk, absently petting his face, touching his lips, then sliding a finger inside Kirk’s mouth. “One would think you’re doing me a favor, little whore… But you must understand that in fact, it’s the other way round… You know what? I think your friend really lied to me, and you have no idea of how to suck a cock right… I think I’ll punish him…” He reached to his pocket with his free hand, the other now tangled in Kirk’s hair, turning his head so he could see the Vulcan better.   
“No, no, please! He didn’t lie!”, Kirk yelled. “Please don’t harm him…”  
“He didn’t lie, hm? Then prove it! But first… I want you to beg that I let you prove it!...”  
“Please, I beg you, let me prove to you that I know how to suck a cock”, Kirk complied without any further hesitation, and T’Rann laughed triumphantly.  
“Let’s see what you’ve got, little slut”, he said. And so Kirk started proving it to him, applying himself as best he could, although whether he really had any experience in the matter, Spock had no idea. However, T’Rann didn’t look displeased with the ministrations, and the inflamed gazes of three dozen lustful Orions – probably nearly the entire complement of the small ship – were riveted on Kirk’s tongue, licking the green hard length, on his full pink lips, as they stretched and closed around the head, moving lower, then withdrawing again, licking and sucking. Spock found himself unable to turn away from the spectacle, and when, having had enough foreplay, T’Rann grabbed Kirk’s head and pushed himself all the way down his throat, oblivious to gagging and choking noises or more likely delighted to hear them, and started to thrust mercilessly, the Vulcan suddenly felt his body betray him in the most appalling way. Fortunately, nobody was watching him too closely, with the exception of the guard pointing a phaser on him at all times, and anyway the clothes he was wearing were broad enough to hide his erection, but the realization that he could actually be aroused by witnessing his friend being so cruelly used and humiliated left him devastated. He managed to repress the arousal, but was unable to change the fact that it had been there, and – although, technically, he was not responsible for it – it made him hate himself with such intensity that even his formidable Vulcan mind couldn’t do anything to cancel the illogical feeling. Neither, in all fairness, did he try to.  
When T’Rann was finished, having come so deep in Kirk’s throat that he hadn’t had any other choice than to swallow, he took a while to silently inspect his victim’s flushed, shamed face with clammy, swollen lips and wide-open eyes veiled by the thinnest sheen of moisture, then finally said:  
“Well, I end up thinking that your friend did exaggerate a little when he spoke about your experience; but I’m inclined to forgive him, because you do seem to have a natural talent. Experience, on the other hand, is to be gained easily. I’m sure my crewmates here will be more than happy to teach you all existing techniques of doing a decent blowjob… I’ll be there to watch your progress, and whenever I see that you’re not studying with enough application, your Vulcan friend will get a painful jolt.”  
“Could… could Spock please not watch this? I promise I’ll be good… Please let him go back to the brig”, Kirk pleaded, his voice hoarse and uncertain. ‘If only he knew what effect watching him had made on me! He would never stop despising me…’, Spock thought with a clenched heart, and although his expression remained impassive, the perspective of staying and witnessing Kirk being used by everyone in the room was extremely distressing. T’Rann’s face beamed with delight.  
“He stays, to punish you for your initial resistance, and I’ll make sure that he watches your lessons in every detail. However, if you really are good, maybe tomorrow I’ll let him stay in the brig while you’re… further educated.” With the last words, T’Rann grabbed Kirk’s hair and pushed him toward V’Nress, who had already lowered his pants and enthusiastically passed to the education part. After him, every other Orion present in the room took his turn in Kirk’s mouth, and although none was able to last very long, the sheer number of them made the torment seem endless to both Kirk and Spock. The Orions gave precise instructions where and how they wanted his tongue, lips or hands, and while most of them wanted their come to be swallowed, others preferred to cover Kirk’s face and body with it, or spill it to the floor and watch him lick it clean. Kirk submitted without protest to all the filthy whims, and when finally they were all done, he was so exhausted that he let himself drop to the floor, trembling and sweating, his eyes fixed abstractedly ahead. T'Rann loomed over him for a moment, inspecting his captive with visible pleasure, then said in a deceptively friendly tone:  
“You did quite well, little human. You’re turning out to be a promising little slut. Now, go to the brig and have a rest: tomorrow you’ll need all your energy again.”  
Kirk somehow managed to drag himself to his feet. A guard directed him out of the rec hall with a phaser pressed against his back, and at the same time, Spock was pushed in the same direction. When Kirk stumbled, he extended his hand to catch him, but Kirk jumped aside as if burnt.  
“Don’t touch me”, he spat out, although the words came out barely audible, and his bruised throat must have ached as he spoke, because he coughed awkwardly and pressed a hand against it. Spock withdrew his hand, taken aback by the reaction. ‘What did you expect?’, he chastised himself bitterly. ‘Jim’s gratitude, for setting him up to go through hell? He probably wishes he had never been rescued from Annaris B… Rescued – hardly an appropriate term. The Orions don’t rescue people, they kidnap and torture or sell them… Jim and I are no exceptions…’ When they were pushed inside the brig, and the guards left, without even bothering to provide Kirk with any sort of clothing, Kirk disappeared behind the thin curtain separating the fresher from the rest of the brig, and Spock could hear copious amounts of water flowing from the shower and the sound of Kirk retching, over and over again. However, when he finally emerged, he looked much better: the filth of the Orions’ bodily fluids disappeared, and he seemed to have regained his strength, because he stood tall and made decisive, harmonious movements that got him to a cot in the furthest end of the brig from Spock’s. He took the shiny sheet covering it and wrapped himself with it, drying himself and covering his naked body at the same time. He then just lay down, without sparing Spock a single glance. The Vulcan walked all the way to his cot and, for the first time since their capture, spoke to him.  
“I understand that you are upset…”, he said, but Kirk didn’t let him finish. He sat up on the bed and asked, putting much effort to make his voice sound strong and even:  
“Did you or did you not tell the Orions that I was a good fuck?”  
“I… I did tell them something to that effect, but…”  
“How dare you?!” Kirk was now standing right opposite Spock, at the distance of an outstretched arm. “Do you think that because I sometimes sleep with people for pleasure, it means I deserve to be raped by a bunch of heartless green-skinned bastards?”  
“It had nothing to do with your mating customs”, Spock replied calmly, although he was feeling far from calm. He had been prepared for accusations, but actually facing them proved more difficult than he had anticipated. “I was merely trying to ensure your survival, as is my duty …”  
“Well, as I see it, you fucking failed in your duty! Do you call that a rescue? Setting me up as a good fuck for a ship full of horny Orions?”  
“I apologize. It was not my intention, but I assure you that my only other option was to leave you for dead, bound and injured on Annaris B…”  
“Well, you should have done just that! Hasn’t it occurred to you that I might prefer that option?” Kirk was yelling, the flames in his eyes all directed straight at Spock. The Vulcan was determined to take all Kirk’s recriminations calmly – after all, they were not entirely illogical – but he felt some strong emotional response, whose nature he couldn’t fully recognize, form inside him with a force that he wasn’t sure to be able to master.   
“I am truly sorry, Jim. I found myself unable to accept such an option when I saw a chance…”  
“You could have tried something else! How has it even come to your mind to basically say I was a whore?”  
“I assure you that I have tried to say many other things first, pointing out your other assets, but the Orions…”  
“My OTHER assets? So, you really do think sucking cock IS one of my principal assets?”  
“Jim! I did not mean it to sound like this…”  
“Oh, but it DID sound like this. You green-blooded traitor, you just NEVER really respected me…”  
“It is not true…”  
“Never! You accused me of cheating, threw me out of your ship like a piece of trash, preferring to fucking kill me rather than listen to me, the one time when I happened to be actually right! Even when I saved your life, you fucking wrote a complaint about it!”  
“All this was a certain time ago, and I assure you that in this situation…”  
“Tell me, Spock, was it a pleasure to watch them fuck my mouth, one by one? Maybe you just can’t wait to see more! Do you think that having a little more of a sex life than a hermit like you, who never even once slept with his own girlfriend, makes me a whore?”  
Something snapped in Spock when Kirk mentioned Uhura. He had really meant to be patient, to let Kirk just take it out on him, because the truth was, he did need to deal with the anger somehow, but all the accumulated distress of the decisions he had made, the horrors he had watched, and probably also some other factors that he was unable to acknowledge at this moment, contributed to the fact that his Vulcan controls chose this precise moment to give way, and he gave the angry reply that he was to regret bitterly:  
“Well, Jim, at least it looks like I did not lie, after all. The Orions seemed quite satisfied with your performance. I just wonder when and how you learned to…” His words were cut off by a violent slap to his face. He stumbled, and caught another cot for support. The anger disappeared instantly, but rather than be replaced by the harmony of logic, turned into a heart-wrenching, desperate regret. ‘What have I done…’ When he turned back to look at Kirk again, the captain’s face, while still contorted in a grimace of fury, was showing such naked hurt that Spock would give his life to be able to take his cruel words back.  
“You… bastard”, Kirk whispered, suddenly devoid of all energy. He slumped to the cot behind him, staring past Spock with wide-open, unseeing eyes.  
“Jim… I apologize…” Spock sank to his knees by the bed, levelling his face with Kirk’s, but the human looked away and said emphatically:  
“Don’t come anywhere near me. Never touch me. Don’t speak to me. Leave me alone.”  
Not wanting to antagonize him further, Spock rose silently and, mumbling another awkward apology, retreated all the way back to his cot at the other side of the brig. He was about to spend one of the saddest nights of his life. Of his past life, because sadder nights were yet to come.

The next day passed uneventfully, the two prisoners sitting on their cots staring ahead like strangers, but Kirk’s stubborn resentment and Spock’s desolation were like two tangible entities, sitting next to them. At midday, a guard brought them food, but ignored all the questions that Spock tried to ask him about the Venora’s current destination or speed. When the Orion went away and Spock handed Kirk his portion, the human took the bowl and hurled it all the way across the room, smashing it at the opposite wall and causing the food to spill all around. Three minutes later, V’Nress was there wielding the dreaded remote control.  
“We do monitor you continually, you know”, he remarked dryly. “Now, little human Jim, clean the mess and find a way to eat the spilled food right from where your wasteful action made it land, or your Vulcan friend will suffer. You’ll need much energy for tonight…”  
“He’s not my friend”, Kirk said very distinctly, and for a moment Spock feared that his captain would no longer be controlled by the care for his wellbeing, but this conclusion was too hasty: despite his words, Kirk immediately jumped down from his bed and did exactly as he had been asked. V’Nress nodded contentedly and walked away, not without mumbling something to the effect of:  
“Good pet! Hope you’ll be just as good tonight”, and he left them. Spock tried to apologize to Kirk once again, but was told to mind his own business and leave him alone, so that was what he continued doing. The swift reaction to Kirk’s antic worried him: it meant that indeed, although no guard was posted directly in front of the brig, there was someone watching them closely at all times, which considerably limited their options. Disabling the cameras was utterly impossible without immediately attracting attention to this fact. The force field was controlled via an external access, that also seemed completely out of reach. But even if they somehow managed to get through it, the collars made the whole attempt completely vain: controlled remotely, they were bound to incapacitate them, and maybe harm them more permanently, the precise moment when the Orions would notice that something was amiss, and there was not a chance whatsoever that they wouldn’t notice. They would have to wait for some extraordinary opportunity, but waiting came at a cruel price. In the evening, three guards came to get Kirk, motioning for Spock to stay where he was. They stripped him of the bed sheet he had used to cover himself, and led him out in the direction of the turbolift, pushing and nudging him, flooding him with such amount of filthy threats and promises that even hearing only every third word of them was offensive. Spock’s heart clenched in his chest as he desperately tried not to imagine what was being done to his captain, but no amount of meditation that he tried in the empty, silent brig was able to stop his mind from showing him the worst, most painful and degrading scenarios, while at the same time he suspected that reality could be even worse. He found his fears confirmed when, three and a half hours later, two Orions dragged Kirk back and threw him inside violently, causing him to fall. He sported bruises and bite marks in various places, and was randomly covered with come, but the most of it was dripping out of him, down his thighs, along with a fairly alarming amount of blood. He had a crushed, defeated expression on his pain-filled face, that was almost worse to watch than his disgraced, abused body. Spock didn’t dare to offer any help, but Kirk somehow scrambled to his feet and managed to get to the fresher by himself, although his awkward gait betrayed his obvious difficulty to walk. He showered and, without a glance or a word for Spock, he got to his cot and fell on it in utter exhaustion. Before Spock had time to reflect on his further course of action – because just sitting there and watching Kirk suffer, without as much as offering the simplest of comforts humans usually found helpful – the Orions came back: it was N’Drell with two guards, one of whom busied himself with holding Spock at phaser point, to keep him from interfering. From his cot, Spock couldn’t observe precisely what N’Drell was doing, but he heard Kirk cry out in pain and protest:  
“Won’t you leave me alone? Haven’t you had enough?”  
“Shh, pet”, N’Drell answered merrily. “I’m trying to help you here, by applying some nice regenerating gel, so that tomorrow you’re good for further use… Because, to be honest, I don’t think anyone has really had enough. And… you might want a piece of advise from your physician. Before we take you tomorrow evening, why don’t you prepare yourself a little? It could spare you a lot of pain and damage… I heard that the Vulcans have very skillful hands – maybe if you asked nicely your little friend here, he would be willing to help stretch you out a little?...” The other two Orions’ laughs and jokes accompanied the doctor’s answer, but when the ministrations were over, the three Orions left, and Spock and Kirk were alone again, but for whoever monitored the image from the cameras. After only a short while, Spock found the silence intolerable, so he walked over to Kirk and spoke to him:  
“Jim… I… I am truly sorry…”  
“Just how many times am I to tell you to leave me the hell alone?”, Kirk answered, without even looking at him.  
“I wish there was anything I could do to help…”  
“You have helped me enough, thank you”, Kirk snorted, breaking Spock’s heart even further, although how there was still anything left to break was a mystery.   
“I could… I could… try to… weaken the memories of what they did… make them less painful…”, Spock offered, and that at least got him finally some reaction. Kirk turned to face him, and apart from the hurt and humiliation that could be still seen in his eyes, they shone with sheer fury.  
“Are you proposing to get into my mind?”, he asked Spock mockingly. “What, didn’t you see enough action yesterday? Do you want to see more? What are you, some kind of pervert?” Spock paled, and his features, schooled to relative impassivity, started to fall at the startling cruelty of Kirk’s words. But that only seemed to encourage him. “Maybe watching wouldn’t be enough? You heard what the good doctor suggested? Would you like to stretch me out, my ‘little friend’? Or why limit yourself to preparations: maybe you simply want a turn of your own with me, don’t you, Spock? Want to fuck the skilled little whore?!”  
Spock had had enough. He tried to convince himself that Kirk didn’t mean what he was saying, that he was just taking his rightful anger against the Orions at the only available target, but it hurt nonetheless. He slowly strode back to his cot, heartbroken and defeated. Watching Kirk suffer such cruel abuse, knowing his own part in it, was painful enough, but being unable to do anything to help, not even hold Kirk’s hand, offer the support of his presence, his friendship, his affection, being so completely rejected… it would be too much for anyone, Vulcan or not. As Spock lay staring at the ceiling, trying to summon some of his control, he heard a sound he had not expected after Kirk’s angry outburst. The human was crying, curled up on his cot under the shiny sheet, facing the wall. He was crying like a child, without inhibitions, weeping and sobbing noisily, shaking and trembling, making the pillow wet and heavy with tears, until finally, exhausted, he cried himself to sleep.  
When the following evening more Orions came to take Kirk to the rec hall for a new session of what was obviously their idea of fun, he hadn’t fully recovered his emotional stability. He struggled vainly with the guards, earning himself several strikes and mockeries, as well as a jolt of the collar, that finished calming him down.   
“Please leave me alone. Please… please let me rest… maybe tomorrow…”, he mumbled, and Spock’s heart tore again. He thought his captain was utterly unable of begging, at least not on his own behalf – to see him so defeated was terrible. The Orions, however, didn’t seem to have any problem with it, as they dragged him out reminding him that Spock would be punished if he resisted any further, which he didn’t.   
After an hour, Spock received an unexpected visitor. Rinsha entered the room and sat down next to him on his cot. She seemed unarmed, although she could have the remote control for the collar hid in a pocket of her suit: it was small and wouldn’t show. Spock thought about nerve pinching her and trading his and Kirk’s freedom for her safety, but he instantly knew it would be useless: as long as the Orions had Kirk, they were in complete control of him.   
“I saw you on the monitor, yesterday night, after your friend came back from the rec hall”, she said, looking Spock in the eyes. Hers were very aesthetically pleasing, he noticed: huge and sapphire dark-blue; sad eyes with fire burning quietly in their depths. “I couldn’t hear the words, but I could see he insulted you. You mustn’t be upset with him, Vulcan Spock. It’s… it’s not his fault, he just loves you so much…”  
“I fail to comprehend what you are trying to imply”, Spock answered stiffly, “but I assure you that you are wrong. Jim hates me, not without a reason, and has made it painfully clear.”  
“Don’t be foolish”, she said. “Yesterday, when we took our turns with him, V’Nress suggested to bring you in to have even more fun. Jim laughed and said good luck, and said a piece of wood was more fun than you. He… started showing more initiative, just to entertain us and make everyone forget about you. It must have cost him a lot, Vulcan Spock: I think you must forgive him for whatever he said to you.”   
Spock listened to Rinsha’s words in utter shock. How could Kirk, at the same time, hurt and reject him so cruelly and protect him, by surrendering to his brutal tormentors even more of himself than they were already taking? The vision of the abused, debased Kirk willingly taking on more humiliation and mistreatment to protect him, while he was sitting unharmed and unmolested in the brig for the entire time, was intolerable.  
“This is… illogical”, he said, unable to elaborate. He felt like he had never been so unhappy and helpless in his entire life, not even when his whole planet disintegrated around him, swallowing his mother and friends.  
“He loves you”, the woman repeated firmly. “As you do him. It’s a shame to play daft when you have this big Vulcan brain in your head. They can debase him all they want, I don’t think anything is able to destroy his love for you, nor yours for him. You two are exceptional.” She reached to stroke his cheek, and Spock wanted to withdraw to avoid the caress, but the grace and tenderness of her movement made him lean into it instead. All Vulcan that he was, he desperately needed some kind of consolation, he would even take something as insignificant and… human as a simple touch.   
“You said: ‘When we took our turns with him’. Did you take your turn, too?”, he asked her.  
“Yes, and I will again”, Rinsha answered, taking her hand back. “T’Rann likes to watch me with others. And your human Jim is such a sweet fuck…”, she added dreamily. “I don’t think he minds, either. After all, since everyone else enjoys his body, why wouldn’t I? At least with me, it doesn’t hurt and he can have a release of his own, that the others never grant, they only tease him.”   
“I thought…” Spock began, but didn’t bother to finish. What was he to say? That he thought she was different? And why would she be different? Because she seemed to be the only woman on this ship full of lustful animals? Because maybe she knew how it felt, to be used like a piece of meat? “Where are we going? What is our current position?”, he asked instead.  
“We’re going further outside from the Federation space, to rendezvous with your buyer. I don’t know our position, I’m an engineer, not a navigator. Are you thinking about escape? Because you don’t have much time. You’ll be sold soon, two or three days at most, and your human friend will be left alone, without anything to motivate him to please T’Rann and stay alive…”  
“Is there any way to escape from the ship, or to take it over?”, Spock asked, missing several heartbeats. “But the collars, the force field…”   
“There’s a shuttle. It has warp capacity, no more than warp 2, but the Venora is running on a cracked crystal… But you would never get there. You shouldn’t underestimate what the collar can do. I saw several people die from just the pain from it, and I assure you, it wasn’t a pleasant sight… Well, to T’Rann and V’Nress, it was. If one of you tries anything, the other will die. T’Rann is greedy, but money isn’t everything for him. He hates being antagonized. He has a special toy he sometimes uses to murder people who had challenged him: it’s called the gha’mort. It looks like an ordinary butt plug, but it’s a bomb. It can be armed, disarmed or set off with a remote control. Also, once it’s armed, whenever the victim or another person pulls at it, even slightly, it explodes inside the victim… So, it’s really wiser not to annoy T’Rann. If you wanted to escape, you would need a very good diversion, to reach the shuttle unnoticed…”, she finished thoughtfully. “I will go now. I don’t want to miss my turn. Remember, he loves you.”  
Spock had three more hours to consider all her words, and although he did his best to concentrate on what she said about the (obviously very limited) possibilities of escape, his mind went back incessantly to her words about Kirk loving him, and vice versa. He wasn’t sure of what exactly she had meant by love – something that humans usually referred to as friendship, no doubt – but the fact that despite his behavior, Kirk could still care for him was a blessed possibility to which his exhausted heart clung like to a life rope. The fact that he tried to protect him from the Orions’ lust was both touching and disturbing. Spock felt uncomfortable with the idea that Kirk might consider his own dignity less worthy of protection than the Vulcan’s. He wanted to do something to let Kirk feel his support and affection, but was helpless remembering that all his attempts were being rejected, and he had no idea why, since apparently Kirk didn’t actually hate him for any of his well-meant actions. Before he could come to any conclusions – and he probably wouldn’t have managed to formulate any, anyway – V’Nress and two more Orions dragged Kirk back to the brig. He looked the same as the other day, filthy and abused, but he was unconscious, and his back, buttocks and legs were marred with long red welts.  
“Hello, Vulcan. Have you ever fucked anyone senseless?’, V’Nress asked conversationally, visibly proud of himself. Spock didn’t answer, but knelt next to Kirk to check his pulse and inspect him for any serious injury. There was less blood on his thighs than the other day, but still too much.  
“Why did you have to beat him as well?”, Spock asked quietly. “Isn’t using him enough? Did he refuse you anything?”  
V’Nress laughed cruelly.  
“No, if he had dared do that, he would have been rewarded by you as a witness to his performance, as that is what he obviously fears the most, short of any harm coming to you. We whipped him simply because we like hearing him moan in pain. It turns us on.”  
“Do you not understand that he is a living, feeling person?” Spock knew that trying to reach any sort of heart in their tormentors was a lost cause, but he asked nonetheless. It got him another fit of laughter, but when it was finished, V’Nress answered:  
“Of course we’re aware of that. That’s precisely the reason why torturing him is fun. To us, his feelings matter only as much as they can bring us any satisfaction. And every being should act the same: worry only about satisfying their own needs or wishes. You were pathetic enough to be caught by the Annari, and we were lucky to find you. You’re ours to use as we see fit: for pleasure or for money. To me, frankly, you’re nothing more than a vrinn I eat for dinner… Except, perhaps, you’re more fun.”  
Spock had nothing to answer to this, and the Orions departed, leaving him with the unconscious Kirk. Spock decided that the bleeding whip marks needed cleaning before some infection would make the situation even worse. Effortlessly, he lifted Kirk in his arms and carried him to the shower, pressing the warm weight against himself and reveling in this sudden, unexpected closeness. Kirk’s face, hanging backwards over his arm, looked so young and vulnerable, and so innocent despite the greenish clammy fluid covering it. Unable to resist, Spock leaned down and very lightly, brushed Kirk’s forehead with his lips. There was no telling when he would be able to touch or hold his friend again: maybe he would have to wait until he was unconscious again. Unwilling to end this moment, Spock nonetheless ended up turning on the shower and trying to clean Kirk as best he could, supporting him against his body with just one arm and gently rinsing the filth with his free hand. The first touches of water brought Kirk around. It took him several moments to understand the situation, and in a first, half-conscious reaction, he leaned into Spock and graced him with a sunny smile: a sincere, careless smile that had lit up his face so often at Spock’s sight on the Enterprise, during what seemed like another life. However, as soon as he remembered where and why he was, he jerked away as if he was burnt, and, pushing Spock away, he yelled:  
“I told you not to touch me! Get out of here! Leave me alone!”  
“You were unconscious and hurt”, Spock answered calmly. “What was I supposed to do, just leave you lying on the floor?...”  
“You could have… I explicitly told you not to touch me! What have you done to yourself?”  
Uncertain of what Kirk was referring to, Spock followed his gaze to the spots on his clothes that were smeared with come and blood, where he had held Kirk pressed against him. Before he could answer, Kirk directed the water at him, wetting his face and clothes and washing the dirt away. Spock nodded, then left the fresher. Showering took Kirk a long while; he retched and stumbled several times, and when he finally got out and started toward his cot, he swayed and would have fallen, but Spock was there on time to grab his arm and steady him. As soon as he regained balance, Kirk struggled furiously to disentangle himself from Spock’s grip.  
“Let go! Didn’t I just tell you not to touch me…”  
“Jim, you must stop this nonsense,” Spock told him, calmly but decisively. “Was I supposed to let you fall? I only touch you to help you, there is nothing wrong about it. My intention is not to make you suffer…”  
“You… don’t understand!”, Kirk exclaimed with stubborn desperation. “The spot you just touched… Do you realize what it was covered with a moment ago? Your hand just brushed mine – do you know what they made me do with this hand? Don’t ever touch me again, any part of me, for any reason! I… don’t want you anywhere near this filth… It’s enough that I have to… their… their hands, their tongues, their cocks everywhere, all over me, inside me…” Kirk hid his face in his hands and trembled, and Spock thought he might cry again, but he caught himself and went to lie down on his cot. Spock followed him.  
“Jim”, he said softly, “you are not filthy. Whatever those… beasts did to you or made you do, it only soils them! It would be… a privilege if you just let me hold your hand for a moment…” Spock made a gesture to take it, but Kirk flinched away like a cornered animal and yelled:  
“It’s disgusting! I don’t want you anywhere near this filth, Spock… I want you to remain… pure… you Vulcans value your privacy so much, your dignity is so important to you…”  
“Jim! You must not think that my dignity is any more important than yours… That is not true, Vulcan or human, every person has the same right…”  
“Yeah, but… It’s not the same, Spock. You’ve always been so… so correct… I was the dirty one anyway, I slept with girls whose name I’d forget the following morning… Not in a while, though, but still…”  
“This does not make you filthy, or make you deserve…”  
“I actually think it kinda does, Spock. And this? It’s not even… not even the first time… I’ve been a whore. Maybe it really is what I’m meant to do…”  
“Jim, what are you referring to? You… are not a whore! You are being forced against your will…”  
“Really? What if I told you that they don’t have to force me anymore, I just comply with their every filthiest whim before they even phrase it?...”  
“You’re doing it to protect me”, Spock cut him, standing up, unable to hear more, shaken to the core. “If that makes you a whore, then being a whore is the noblest thing there has ever been. You say that you find me ‘pure’ and want me to remain this way, but… I am not sure if I would be able to do the same for you. It hurts me to see you suffer like this and not even be able to touch you.”  
Kirk looked him in the eyes for a certain time, visibly moved by his words. However, his body language showed clearly that he was very far from ready for any sort of contact, and Spock didn’t insist further. “Spock… Maybe… maybe go back to your cot and think about how we could escape from here, okay? Because I don’t know how long I’ll be able to endure this… They’re becoming… every time more demanding, more cruel… Think about it, okay? We’ll talk in the morning, but now I have to sleep, because hell, I’m exhausted.”  
Spock nodded and obediently moved to his side of the brig. However, when he was sure Kirk was asleep, he walked over to him again and stared for a long while at his now peaceful, serene features, his long lashes shadowing rosy cheeks, pink lips slightly open, letting see just the tip of the tongue. The emotion that rose in Spock at this sight was different from anything that he had ever felt. It was like a sudden realization just how much this man had come to mean for him, how precious he had become. When he lost his home planet, his annihilated friends and fellow Vulcans left in his soul a huge, black void, painful and threatening at first to devour all of him. His girlfriend of that moment, Nyota Uhura, although he respected her and she tried very hard to help him through this tragedy, just for some reason never found the right path to him; they could be friends, but on some very primary level their minds did not match. But then there was suddenly a light in this blackness, company in this solitude, a single little star twinkling and warming and helping plot his course. This brilliant young human, strong yet sensitive, smart yet illogical, both serious, capable of deep understanding, and as joyful as a ray of sun, had been able to accept Spock as he was and deeply transform him at the very same time. What Spock was feeling, looking at this beautiful sleeping face, was more than loyalty, more than admiration, more than friendship… To be able to see Jim happy on the bridge of the Enterprise again, chatting casually with Sulu, flirting with Uhura, teasing McCoy, drinking with Scotty – he would give his life without a single moment of hesitation. And yet, here they were, mere possessions in the hands of heartless people who disdained them, considered their value limited to the use that could be made of them. Unable to resist the urge to break this evil spell if only for a moment, to be close for a moment, free from the cruelty that weighed upon them so mercilessly, he bent over Kirk’s sleeping shape and gently kissed his hair, his eyes, his lips, every finger of his hand lying on the sheet. “T’hy’la”, he whispered, and this silent, one-sided contact did more to restore his peace of mind than any amount of hours of meditation ever could.

The next day, Kirk and Spock were already on speaking terms, but no matter how hard they strained the not negligible force of their minds, they couldn’t find any method to escape the Venora that wouldn’t get any of them collar-shocked to death. They had no access to anything, so they couldn’t sabotage anything; at best, they could somehow count on overpowering a guard when he was entering the brig, but the way to the shuttle bay was so long that they would be noticed and apprehended a hundred times before they got there. At night was not much better than at daytime, because the Orions needed much less sleep than humans and organized their shifts in such manner than never more than one third of the personnel were resting at a time. At the usual hour, Kirk was taken away, but he seemed less frightened than the other day, and he went with his tormentors without a protest, giving Spock a brave little smile over his shoulder to reassure him. However, neither of them could have anticipated just how wicked the Orions could be, when they hoped it would make them have better fun. After about an hour, an Orion came to the brig and forced Spock to follow him to the rec hall. Over thirty people were there, some of them visibly intoxicated, gathered around a table. As Spock had dreaded, fastened to this table was Kirk, sweaty and already copiously covered with Orion bodily fluids, immobilized by an extremely uncomfortable rope tie in a most obscene position. His calves were bound together with his thighs, with his ankles tightly secured to each corner of the table, leaving his ass shamelessly exposed, his abused hole leaking scandalizing amounts of greenish come along with several threads of contrasting bright red blood. Spock felt his blood stop running in his veins, becoming as cold and hard as ice, his heart turning to stone, his thoughts abstracting themselves from the current surroundings in a defensive, desperate manner. Several Orions pushed him forward, until he was standing between Kirk’s legs, trying not to look at his half-hard cock, his pinched and bitten nipples, or his burning face.   
“I’m sorry, Spock”, Kirk choked out, his hoarse voice as well as a thin trickle of come dripping from his swollen mouth providing more proof of abuse. “I was good… I don’t know why they brought you…”  
“Mainly because it displeases you, I presume”, Spock answered calmly. He wanted to convey assurance, to show Kirk that he was in control of himself, that he was well, although he was not, not by a very long shot. Not only was he sick with disgust and anger over what was being done to his friend, but he also felt again this horrible wave of heat in his body on the brink of betraying him, now that he wanted so much to remain the full master of his passions.  
“Well, we have certainly not brought you here for small talk”, T’Rann said, and only now did Spock pay him any attention. He was still fully clothed, unlike most of the company, and was holding a small knife in a candle fire. When the tip was glowing white and threatening to melt, he withdrew it. “I heard that all Vulcans are artists. And more precisely, that your language demands that every Vulcan be a master in calligraphy. I hope this is true about you, because I would like you to calligraph a word. It must be impeccable, because you will be writing on an exquisite surface. And a very special word, too.”  
Spock gazed at T’Rann apprehensively, took in once more the blade he was holding, and he was quite sure to know what was expected of him. He shook his head in denial. T’Rann laughed, and others with him.  
“I want you to carve a word here on your human friend’s shapely abdomen” – T’Rann brushed the chosen spot with his hand, right above Kirk’s genitals. “You will carve the word ‘whore’ in Vulcan. I can’t see any more fitting word to describe this little human slut here. Ah, and if I were you, I wouldn’t try a-ny-thing. And by trying anything, I mean as well trying to use the knife against us or against yourself, as trying to cheat us on the word. I may not be an expert in Vulcan, but I do know how you write ‘whore’, and I’m pleased to notice that it’s quite long. Do you want me to detail to you what horrors we plan for your friend if you do anything untoward?”  
“I believe I have understood”, Spock answered. He could hardly hear T’Rann’s abject directions through the pounding in his head, the rush of blood in his ears. He could not master the trembling of his hands, the fire in his veins. He could not stop thinking that he would prefer to be anywhere else right now, even in the heart of the planet Vulcan when it was hit with the red matter bomb, rather than stand here, between Kirk’s wide open legs, with this white hot blade, unable to fight neither revulsion nor arousal.   
“Hey, captain”, V’Nress suddenly said, “the Vulcan may not be as much of a piece of wood as his friend was implying. I’ll be damned if he’s not enjoying himself better than we thought. He just wants a fuck!”  
Spock felt his face burn, but now that it had been pointed out, everyone noticed the shape of his erection under the thin and colorful garment he was wearing. The Orions started laughing and teasing, until T’Rann merrily proposed:  
“Well, Vulcan Spock. I don’t believe fucking someone will cause any damage to your valuable person… Therefore, I’m offering you a choice: you can either carve the word ‘whore’ in Vulcan on human Jim’s belly, or you can fuck him here and now for us to watch. It’s your decision.”  
Spock stared at the knife again, then at the flushed flesh in front of him. It seemed so illogical to mar the velvety skin with a burning knife, when he could avoid it by doing what his body desired anyway. But on the other hand, using Kirk in front of all his tormentors, for their pleasure, seemed an unthinkable humiliation.  
“Spock… the word, please…”, Kirk pleaded in a small voice, pain-filled blue eyes bearing into Spock’s with incredible intensity.   
“Are you… are you sure, Jim? The word is quite long… it will be… very painful”, Spock answered, as his free hand ghosted over the perfect skin of Kirk’s abdomen, touching its warm silky softness just the slightest bit, and yet it proved enough for Kirk to become fully hard in a matter of seconds.  
“The slut actually wants it! He craves the Vulcan’s cock inside him! And we had been foolish enough to think that he had had enough of cock…”, V’Nress commented delightedly.  
“Go on, give him a good fuck, Vulcan! What are you even thinking about?”, another encouraged.  
“Please, Spock… The word… now… and let’s have it over with”, Kirk practically begged. Spock had managed to take hold of himself sufficiently at least to understand that, whatever he might prefer, the choice belonged to Jim. He fully concentrated on the task ahead of him, chose the spot where he had to begin to fit the entire word, and pressed the white-hot tip of the knife against the smooth skin, only deep enough to leave a trace. With fluid, controlled, measured movements, he executed the necessary letters, one after another, but all the while he imagined vividly that he was writing, with a thread of pure gold, a whole different Vulcan word – ‘ashayam’, beloved – on a long, rich satin robe that Kirk would wear if they were to celebrate a traditional bonding ceremony on New Vulcan. Kirk withstood the painful procedure letting out only very quiet moans from time to time, but the Orions seemed hypnotized: many of them grabbed their cocks and ejaculated on both Kirk and Spock, and V’Nress did it exactly over Kirk’s face, covering it messily with thick and sticky, greenish-tinted come. As soon as the word was finished, T’Rann, who had contented himself merely with watching and feeling his arousal reach a peak, took the knife out of Spock’s hand, tossed it carelessly to the floor, and pushed the Vulcan roughly aside, taking his own cock out of his pants and shoving it all at once into Kirk’s ass, grabbing his freshly marked abdomen with one hand and brutally fondling his genitals with the other. Kirk howled in pain and, as the Orion rammed into him at a crazy pace, over and over again, a single tear leaked from his eye, leaving a fragile trace in the disgusting mask of come covering his face. Spock was staring abstractedly at the scene, but he was too broken to feel anything anymore, he only stared dumbly wishing for death to just come and take him as he stood.  
“Come, Vulcan Spock, I don’t think they need you anymore”, he heard Rinsha’s voice whisper into his ear, while the woman’s arm grabbed his and she steered him gently out of the rec hall and led him back into the brig, while he followed her meekly, oblivious to anything. “Listen, Vulcan Spock”, she told him. “You have very little time. Tomorrow is your last day on the Venora: the morning after next night you will be sold to your new owner, and you have very little chances to survive for a long time once he gets you. Are you listening to me?”  
“Yes”, Spock answered, putting aside the grueling images from moments ago and closing them in a special little box for later.  
“Your buyer will experiment on you, take samples, examine, eventually dissect… Without you, the human Jim won’t last here long. He will struggle with all he has, and will most likely be shocked to death with the collar, of if T’Rann is really frustrated, blown up with the gha’mort. You can’t let this happen. You and him… have something special. You can’t let T’Rann destroy it, and you, forever. The universe would not have enough tears to mourn such love as yours.”  
“It does not have enough tears to mourn Jim’s hurt, or enough fire to avenge it”, Spock answered. “You are speaking as if we could escape, but you must know that without your help, it’s impossible. If you sabotaged the image from the cameras, disabled the collars, gave us weapons, destroyed the Venora’s dilithium crystal, helped us get to the shuttle bay…”  
“Whoa! What a formidable list of tasks for one little Orion girl. I’m an engineer, not a miracle worker. What you need, is a very good diversion. We still have whole day tomorrow, I’ll try to think of something.”  
Spock fixed her sapphire eyes with his, chocolate black. He couldn’t believe she was actually promising to at least try to help them, even though the chances still obviously weren’t good.  
“What is there in it for you?”, he asked, incredulous. “Are you not happy here, among your own kind, cherished by the captain?”  
“No, Vulcan Spock, I’m not happy. Would you be happy with people who can destroy others for sheer pleasure? Who can trample a love more beautiful that anything that ever existed? Only because I’m fed, dressed and granted some affection doesn’t mean I’m happy. Will you promise me that, if I manage to make us escape, you’ll try and intercede for me to get Federation citizenship?”  
“I can guarantee it to you”, Spock assured.   
“All right. I’ll do what I can. Diversion. This will be the key to our escape. See you soon, Vulcan Spock. Don’t be so sad. True love cannot be destroyed, especially not by those who disregard it. But now I have to go, or I’ll miss my turn.”  
And in two or three swift movements, she was gone, the force field back in place behind her. She left Spock uncertain, not daring to hope, but unable to refrain from doing so. ‘You are Vulcan, hope is merely an emotion, what does logic say? Even if Rinsha is the main engineer, sabotaging main systems in a way that will not be detected until after a while is not an easy task. It would serve no purpose to steal the shuttle it we were to be spotted and destroyed immediately. I cannot see how we could even get to the shuttle bay… Even with Rinsha and some weapons, we would still be severely outnumbered: three against forty, or if it is at night, against thirty, maybe twenty five, but all of them having the controls for our collars… She kept talking of diversion: but being an engineer, if she causes any kind of malfunction, she will be the first person summoned to fix it… And why does she even want to risk everything she has, what seems to be a relatively safe and not unpleasant life, in an extremely high position for an Orion woman, after knowing us for mere three days? Having talked to me twice, and… taken her… turn… with Jim… three times? What are her real intentions?’ His reflections were interrupted two hour later by Kirk’s return. This time, the Orions who brought him didn’t engage in any sort of talk and just walked away, while Kirk, as usual, just stumbled to the fresher. Spock stared miserably at the curtain behind which he disappeared, wondering whether Kirk would speak to him or be angry again, or how he would feel after the horrors of the evening. But when Kirk came out of the shower, wrapped as usual in one of the sheets, he looked surprisingly calm, he was even smiling casually at Spock, and, instead of walking to the cot at the other side of the brig, he threw himself at one next to Spock’s.  
“How… how do you feel?”, Spock asked, berating himself for the idiotic question, but asking it anyway to begin a conversation. To his surprise, Kirk waved a hand and answered indifferently:  
“I’m fine, Spock, I think I’m getting used to it. Being a whore is difficult in the beginning…”  
“You are not a whore… Stop saying that.”  
“Well, I have an inscription on my belly that says otherwise”, Kirk retorted, his expression indicating that he meant it as a joke, but it did not amuse Spock.  
“I… apologize”, the Vulcan choked out. “Does… does it hurt?” ‘Another clever question’, he thought sarcastically. ‘Because why would a mass of burning cuts hurt? Idiot.’  
“Nah, they’re just scratches. Listen, don’t worry about it, okay? I’m telling you I’m fine. And, Spock…”, Kirk’s voice sounded now much more serious, “I wanted to say thank you. I know Vulcans don’t indulge…”  
“You have nothing to thank me for, Jim, even by human standards. I have just carved an offensive word in your skin with a white-hot knife…”  
“I think you know what I’m thanking you for. But if you need it explained, thank you for not fucking me, all right? I know it was difficult for you to cut me, so I really appreciate…”  
“Jim! Refraining from raping a person is NOT a logical reason for them to feel grateful…”  
“Under normal circumstances, of course not, but as it was… Why are you quarrelling, Spock? I only wanted to say thank you. Thank you for respecting my choice. I don’t know if it would have been yours or not, but thank you for respecting mine”, he finished quietly, tired by the argument.  
“My choice would have been… to take you away to a place where you could not be harmed”, Spock answered softly, almost tenderly, his melting brown eyes riveted to Kirk’s blue ones.  
“Well, yeah… mine, too… But, Spock, I want you to know one thing. If I chose the knife, it wasn’t because… it wasn’t because I don’t want you… I just… I was so full of them, they were staring, and it was so disgusting… I didn’t want you to… get soiled…” Kirk averted his gaze, looking awkwardly away.  
“You continue seeing me as so ‘pure’, yet I assure you I am anything but”, Spock said in an unexpectedly sharp, dejected voice. “You saw how my body reacted to watching you… like this…” His shame at the confession and his self-loathing were obvious as he lowered his head and directed his gaze to the floor.  
“But, Spock”, Kirk protested, “It may not be so to you, but I assure you it was a perfectly normal reaction to…”  
“To seeing your dearest friend raped repeatedly?”  
“I was going to say: to visual stimulation of sexual nature”, Kirk corrected emphatically. “But thanks for ‘dearest friend’. I appreciate the sentiment…”  
“This is how you would label what was done to you? You think that it was just that for me: visual stimulation of sexual nature?”  
“I know it was difficult for you, Spock, and I understand how shitty you must have felt to watch me with the Orions, but a body is just a body, don’t expect your hormones to follow logic… If it’s any consolation, those fuckers made me come several times, although I am by no means attracted to any of them, and that’s an understatement. It’s simply physiology… It’s not our fault, Spock. None of this is our fault, okay? The Orions are the bad guys here, no one else. One day, we will be back on our ship and we will simply forget all this nightmare, okay Spock?”  
“We may never get back. The Orion woman, Rinsha, came to talk with me, and she promised to think about our possible escape, but…”, Spock shook his head sadly. “If I were to estimate our odds, even with her help, they are not promising.”  
Kirk stared at him thoughtfully for several moments.  
“Rinsha and I… had a long talk moments ago in the rec hall”, he said slowly. “She said it wouldn’t be possible. She seemed sorry, but I can’t blame her, Spock: she would be risking her life or worse. We must… we must postpone escape for now.”  
“Postpone! Jim, I am to be handed over to my buyer the day after tomorrow morning… Well, tomorrow morning, to be precise, as it is already past midnight, ship’s time.”  
“I know, Spock, but we’re on a ship travelling at warp, manned by fifty people, under constant surveillance, imprisoned… how would you propose we escape? But we don’t know what the situation will be with the bastard who’s gonna buy you. You’ll be on a planet, that’s always easier. Maybe there’ll be other victims of experiments willing to help and break free with you? Maybe the odds will be less hopeless?”  
“But that will not help you”, Spock answered in a grave voice.  
“You’re very wrong here. Your escape from whoever will detain you next is my best chance. I know that if you can escape, you can track the Venora and either get me back or, if I’ve already been sold, learn where to and track me there. Do you understand?”  
“I do, Jim, but you are making many unfounded assumptions.”  
“Well, yeah, if we assume that the fucker who buys you will perform an autopsy on you immediately upon your arrival, then we have nothing to talk about. I’ll tell you what: I want you to promise me that the first chance you get to escape, you take it and come back for me, okay?”  
“Jim, your request is illogical. Why would I deliberately ignore a good chance at escaping? I just cannot see why you assume it will be possible… Of course I would come back for you, but… you might be already…”  
Spock was unable to finish the sentence, so Kirk picked it up for him:  
“…Dead. You mean I might be dead. Look, Spock, here’s the deal. You promise me – no, you swear to me, on the memory of Vulcan – that the first chance you get to escape, you take it, and come back for me. In return, I promise you that I’ll do my utter possible to stay alive: no provoking the Orions, no stupid heroics, enduring everything with the hope that you will come back. Do you accept the deal?”  
Spock eyed him for a certain time, speechless. There was something amiss with what Kirk was saying, something that wasn’t quite logical. Everything seemed to make sense, and Spock was even reassured by Kirk’s promise to try to stay alive waiting for his return, but he couldn’t understand why Kirk insisted on being promised a thing that seemed like the most logical course of action anyway.   
“Spock, you wondered if you could make me feel better in any way, and can’t give me something as simple as a promise, just to give me hope?”, Kirk urged, and the emotional blackmail paid off instantly.  
“I promise you, Jim. I swear, on the memory of my destroyed planet, that I will take the first possible chance to escape and do my possible to come back for you. Are you satisfied?”  
“Immensely.” 

When Kirk and Spock woke up after a night’s rest, they realized that this day was going to be different from the previous ones, because it was likely their last day together before the imminent separation. And while the perspective of being taken away from Kirk and leaving him alone with his bestial oppressors tore at Spock’s heart, even though his presence wasn’t of any help anyway, Kirk seemed strangely content and couldn’t stop talking about what they would do after they got back to their ship and reminding Spock about his promise. This behavior seemed strange to Spock, but he didn’t dare question Kirk’s optimism, relieved to see him in such good mood while in fact, he had all reasons to be upset. Spock continually glanced in the direction of the force field, hoping that, despite what she allegedly told Kirk while “taking her turn” with him, Rinsha would come and, in a conspiratorial whisper, would explain to them the details of this diversion she was supposed to prepare, as well as the details of the escape plan. But nothing of the kind happened, and all they could do was wait for the inevitable. In the evening, already expected, the Orions came to get Kirk, and they informed him with visible pleasure:  
“It’s gonna be a very special night for you, little pet. Rinsha has invented a whole new toy for us to play together… a little ring for your slutty cock. I bet it’s gonna be very interesting.”  
“It had better”, Kirk replied, undaunted. “Usually, you’re not as creative as you think.”  
“Ah, the little whore is waiting for more! Don’t worry, I’ll bet you’re gonna like the toy veeeery much, although not quite as much as we will!”  
When they pulled Kirk away, he turned and fixed Spock’s eyes until the very moment when he disappeared in the turbolift. He was smiling a sincere, serious smile reaching straight to the heart, and Spock thought that there was something incongruous in his behavior: his cockiness with the Orions was probably just a way to get some illusion of control over his unenviable fate, but the smile somehow was at odds with it, and Spock felt as if this lingering gaze was a goodbye. But they were supposed to meet again, he was to be sold in the morning, and the Orions always returned Kirk well before midnight… Something suddenly felt very wrong for Spock. Why had Kirk been so relaxed since the previous night, despite the cruelties he had endured and was about to endure? Why had he insisted on this ridiculous promise, that wasn’t going to get him anywhere, since Spock would very probably find himself unable to escape his buyer? Why had Rinsha – who, while perhaps helpless to actually rescue them, had nonetheless seemed well-meaning – invented some new toy, new way of further torturing Kirk? And what was this thing, wouldn’t it cause him any serious injury? Because that it would cause pain was more than obvious. Spock was trying to think, but his anxiety for Kirk was somewhat clouding his judgement, and he found it impossible to concentrate. He wasn’t helped by the fact that most of the factors he was trying to take into account were not strictly ruled by logic: Kirk’s and Rinsha’s behavior could have roots in some sort of emotional intricacies that would be by definition inaccessible to him. Still… a flicker of this human weakness, hope, tormented him again. Was it possible that Rinsha had found a way of helping them escape after all, and Kirk knew it, but for some reason it was better not to imply Spock in the details of the plan?   
This most crazy, most blessed possibility had to be true, because about an hour later Rinsha appeared in the brig. She was armed, but only with one single phaser. She was wearing her work suit and there was a tricorder hanging across her body. She disabled the force field.  
“Come, Vulcan Spock”, she said in a very urgent tone. “We only have minutes. I can’t take your collar off, but I’ve got a remote control, so if someone activates it, I’ll disactivate it immediately.”  
“Where is Jim?” Spock asked, without moving from his spot.  
“Already in the shuttle”, she replied, staring him intently in the eyes, without blinking. “When all the Orions were in the rec hall with him, too busy with the new toy to notice anything, I knocked them out with anesthesia gas. They’ll come around in a matter of minutes, so why don’t you hurry?”  
Now, Spock followed her with all the speed he could muster. Although the shuttle bay was relatively far from the brig, they arrived there unmolested. They jumped into the tiny shuttle that, besides the seats for a pilot and a navigator, only had enough space to fit three or four more people in the back, but there weren’t any seats for them, just floor. It was empty. Spock threw himself at Rinsha, who was engaging the thrusters to launch the shuttle, but was stopped dead when she activated his collar. He writhed in agony, and watched helpless as she cleared the shuttle bay and immediately went to warp. When she plotted a course, she bound his hands, and only then did she disactivate the shocks. With his Vulcan physiology and capacity to master pain, Spock regained a relative control of his faculties after several minutes, but still not enough to be able to express himself. Rinsha took advantage of his condition and took the initiative of explaining, hitting straight the heart of the matter:  
“Human Jim was my diversion, Vulcan Spock. There was no other way. If I had tried to flood the rec hall with any incapacitating substance, the dose necessary to knock out an Orion would have killed the human. Besides, the alarms would have gone off and T’Rann’s voice command would have overridden me easily… Understand, I couldn’t sabotage the entire ship… I managed to loop the image from the brig cameras and from the shuttle bay, but that was about it. I also dearly hope that I managed to sabotage their warp drive, and that if they try to engage it, the faulty crystal will blow right inside the warp core, stopping them dead. Fortunately, they were so obsessed with their new fuck that when I proposed a new play, almost the last one of them ran to try or at least to watch…” She wasn’t sure if Spock was even listening to her. His devastated face was reflecting such utter despair that she feared for his sanity. “Listen, Vulcan Spock. I had consulted this plan with your friend. When yesterday I went to fuck him, I leant down to his ear and said: I have good odds to escape with Vulcan Spock if you are the diversion. He was so happy that he kissed my hands! But he warned me that you wouldn’t want to go without him, and that I had to cheat and maybe downright kidnap you. Understand: this was his best chance. This IS his best chance. Now, I’ll admit, I don’t know a thing about navigation. Where should we go? What are our best chances to find help?”  
Spock remained quiet for several moments, then whispered:  
“I want to return to the Venora. I will not leave Jim to these brutes all alone, to torture him…”  
“Well, I don’t want to sound cruel, but were you able to help him any while you were there? I don’t think so, Vulcan Spock. Face it: you are now his only chance. We will bring help. If the crystal explodes like I have presumed, the Venora will be adrift… They won’t be able to retrieve us!” Facing Spock’s stubborn silence again, Rinsha lost her patience and yelled: “What are you, a Vulcan or a simple fool? What does logic tell you? That you’ll help him better remaining free, mobile, and able to fetch help, or committing suicide?”  
Spock wasn’t looking at her. His heart was still speeding after the collar shocks, but that was almost pleasant compared to the hell unleashed in his mind. Unable to control himself further in any fashion, he crumbled to the deck and sobbed hysterically, wishing for death to come and end the agony. The black, terrifying void inside him, opened by the destruction of Vulcan, but then tamed with a little star shining and rising to the dimensions of a sun, giving warmth and life, was threatening to devour him again. The sun had disappeared, shrunk to a tiny silver spot somewhere deep and far, slipping further and further from Spock’s grasp, and about to go out for good. So, he had been right to suspect that something was wrong! This is why Jim was so serene: he hoped that Spock would escape, and was only happy to pay all the price, as he had from the beginning of this nightmare. That’s what the promises were for: he knew very well that it wasn’t on any planet that Spock’s chance would present itself, but still on the Venora, the same day, just one tiny detail: without him, staying behind as diversion, happy to have some new torture device tested on him, as long as it was supposed to buy Spock precious minutes… He knew Spock would be unable to accept this deal, so he just set him up. Well, at least Spock had his promise that he would try to stay alive, but… was it going to make any difference?  
“Tell me, Rinsha”, Spock finally answered, his tone heavy, his eyes unseeing, “do we have any chance to find Jim alive when we manage to bring help? You said before that T’Rann was vindictive. How do you think he will react when he discovers that his woman escaped with a valuable piece of merchandise? Which will it be for Jim, collar shocks to death, or maybe the gha’mort?”  
It was Rinsha’s turn to be silent, and she bit her lip.   
“There was no choice, Vulcan Spock”, she whispered. “Several hours later, you were sold to a man without conscience, who would use you to take samples, examine, maybe breed, genetically modify, and eventually dissect… You would be lost forever… And human Jim would end up as somebody’s fuck toy somewhere in the galaxy, aware of your fate, without any hope… He preferred it this way, I assure you… He was only concerned about your reaction, rightfully, as I see. Accept what’s logical, Vulcan, and let’s do our best to help.”  
“You have not answered my question. Do you honestly believe that we have any chance to retrieve Jim alive?”  
“Yes, I honestly believe we do. T’Rann is indeed very vindictive and I have no doubt that he will take his anger out on human Jim, but he will want him to suffer. If we hurry, I really hope we can be on time. But… you must be prepared for anything, Vulcan Spock. T’Rann knows how to cause pain and has no inhibitions, even blinding or otherwise mutilating a person is not beyond him…” She stopped, seeing the expression on Spock’s face, and fearing another breakdown. “You must be strong, Vulcan Spock. I didn’t do it for you as much as for him. I did what was logical, and I made him happy, as much as he could be. Now, we must not fail him. Will you take the navigation station and lead us somewhere where we can find help?”   
To her relief, Spock had finally managed to pull himself together. His face was a numb mask, but his tears had dried and intelligence had returned to his gaze.  
“We had rendezvous with our ship around Annaris B at about a week after we got captured. That should be a day from now. Going to Annaris B at our full speed of warp 2, we will get there in three days. This is not good enough… In half a day, when we have put some distance between ourselves and the Venora, we will broadcast a universal emergency distress signal, hoping that she will pick it up and deploy her best speed to intercept us. In an optimal set of circumstances, we could thus reach the Venora in about 36 hours from now.”  
“Whoa! But… your plan has many weak spots. How can you be sure a trading vessel will respond to a distress signal, and how could it be any match to the Venora, even with a sabotaged warp drive?...”  
“Ours was not a trading vessel. We are from the Enterprise, Starfleet flag exploration vessel. She is obliged to respond to distress signals…”  
“You were… you are Starfleet?”  
“Yes. I was the first officer of the Enterprise, and Jim was her captain. Am. Is.” Spock’s voice broke with the last word. Is or was, there was no way of knowing which. Rinsha was staring at him, shocked speechless. “If you approve of my plan, will you kindly untie my hands, so that I can plot the course for Annaris B? Time is of the essence.”  
Rinsha nodded and complied immediately. Spock examined the controls and swiftly pressed the right buttons. But once that was done and they were hurtling through space with their maximal speed of warp 2, in the direction where Spock dearly hoped to encounter the Enterprise – if she hadn’t been delayed – there was precious little for them to do except think or talk. Spock could no longer stop his tortured imagination from showing him the most grueling cruelties that could be perpetrated against the person dearest to him. He imagined T’Rann learning that his prisoner and his woman escaped, leaving his vessel incapacitated, and direct all his rage against Kirk. Would Jim keep his word and try to live, or would he on the contrary try to use this first, terrible surge of anger to hit him directly, possibly at the cost of his life, to avoid a longer, unthinkably painful death? Spock tried not to think about what exactly the Orions would do to Jim, because, although he himself had suffered torture and seen others suffer many times, he was certain that his imagination in the matter was too poor to match possible reality. He briefly saw defile in front of him different images of Jim after T’Rann finished with him: Jim savagely raped, beaten and whipped by dozens of green-skinned beasts; Jim covered with blood, bruised, his limbs lying at impossible angles; Jim suspended from the ceiling, bound, bleeding out from a thousand cuts; Jim shocked to death with the collar; Jim without limbs, with his eyes burnt out of his face… He realized that he was trembling only when Rinsha shook him by the arm.  
“Don’t think about it, Vulcan Spock! You will only harm yourself… Maybe they won’t bother with human Jim at all… Maybe they will be too busy trying to repair the Venora! Since no one has been pursuing us to this moment, I take it that my sabotage of the warp core was successful. Our chances are good. You may yet be happy with your love…”   
“Do not… do not try to placate me with false hopes”, Spock said, disentangling his arm from her grip. “If you think that your scheme worked, then let us emit the distress signal.”  
They did. The Orion woman fixed Spock in silence for a certain time, until she asked:  
“If you are Starfleet… a high ranking officer… you will have to arrest me, right? After all, I wasn’t a prisoner, but a crewmember on the Venora. Therefore, I was active party in your capture and detainment… I took active part in… ah… abusing your friend… no, your captain…”  
“Do not worry”, Spock answered, eyeing her without hostility for the first time since discovering that Kirk wasn’t aboard the shuttle. “You were not a prisoner, but your options were extremely limited. Your status of a female on Orion appointed you to a subservient role. You could consider yourself lucky to have found someone like T’Rann, who cherished you in his way, gave you an important function permitting you to develop your engineering skills… You cannot be blamed for staying by his side. You were not the one who made the decisions that caused us… that caused Jim harm. You risked everything in order to help me escape, and for that alone Starfleet owes you a reward. You have nothing to fear from us.”  
“Then from Starfleet, I’m safe”, she concluded. “But if we come too late to save your beloved… you will kill me, won’t you, Vulcan Spock? For having made you leave him behind.”  
Spock cast her a surprised glance.   
“Of course not”, he answered without hesitation. “I believe that your intentions were honest. I also believe what you said about Jim approving of this scheme…”, he added, heavy-hearted. “He would not wish anything bad happen to you. Whatever we find on the Venora, you have my promise to help you build a new life as Federation citizen. What I cannot promise you… is my gratitude, if we come too late. But you have nothing to fear.”  
Rinsha looked into his eyes, moved to tears. She hurt this man so badly, she had had her part in hurting his friend, and yet there he was, looking at her without malice, promising her safety and his help, trying to be fair, to understand her situation… If she ever caused T’Rann’s friend to die, even while actually trying to help him, she was quite sure she would be executed on the spot. Used to living among abuse, brutality and terror, she found this kindness almost too much to bear.  
“Your heart is pure like a diamond, Vulcan Spock”, she whispered, stroking his cheek. “I truly hope, from all my heart, that you will find your human Jim on time, and you will yet be happy. Your love is a too great gift to the world to be destroyed. The universe itself will protect it.”

When the Orions took Kirk that day, bubbling excitedly about the new toy they were about to try out on him, little did they know about the trap that had been set for them. Kirk knew from Rinsha the toy was some complicated kind of cock ring, meant to prevent release as well as cause pain or even permanent damage, but he wasn’t worried about it the slightest bit: it was nothing he couldn’t handle, and he could only hope it would be sufficient to distract his tormentors long enough. The Orions seemed indeed extremely thrilled with the perspective of trying it out on him. At first, they concentrated on the torture part, restraining him in ways to force certain positions, then doing everything to make him shift, causing agony as well as injury, although not severe enough to make him lose his manhood altogether. Rinsha was there at first: she made him a sign to let him know that everything was ready, and he could hardly refrain from laughing out loud despite the torment. Well after she left, they switched to teasing him, trying out all possible ways to arouse him while the ring denied him release. Kirk had to bear with their expert hands fondling and stroking his erogenous zones, as well as stimulating directly his prostate, fucking him or inserting object of different kinds and sizes. His thoughts were so completely occupied with Spock’s escape that he barely even noticed the indignities his body was being subjected to, but he forced himself to pay more attention and try to entertain their interest more actively before it faded, making them able to interfere with Rinsha’s scheme. During the first four days, although at the beginning he had been too shocked to think, he had nonetheless managed to gather what kind of reaction attracted them the most, and he deliberately gave it to them. At first, he pretended to resist, claimed that he was so disgusted with them they would never manage to arouse him, so that it felt like a victory when his body obviously betrayed him; then, he passed to their favorite part, which was tearfully begging them to let him come and repeating, in apparent submission, whatever filthy things they wanted him to say or do to deserve this reward. Occasionally, a sting of how utterly humiliating his situation was still got to him, although after four days of being used in most degrading manners he could hardly care anymore. He was more worried about Spock. Rinsha had been reasonably confident that her escape plan would work out, but Kirk was deeply concerned that Spock might never come to terms with being compelled into leaving him behind as a distraction for their captors. He actually felt sorry for his dutiful Vulcan, for what he would feel at the realization that, yet again, he hadn’t managed to save his captain. However, Kirk hoped that the oath he had forced out of him, as well as simple logic, would prevent him from doing anything stupid, and that he would just concentrate on fetching a rescue. Even if it failed – and Kirk was pretty anxious that they might come only on time to avenge him, which was better than nothing – Kirk hoped that Spock would manage to forget about this entire disaster, about Annaris B, about the Venora, the vicious Orions, and about him.   
When over an hour had passed after Rinsha’s leaving and Kirk was beginning to hope that, pleased with his slutty performance, they would at the long last let him come, a high-pitched wailing sound was heard on the entire ship. The Orions closest to Kirk withdrew their hands and cocks from him and started getting dressed in panic, while T’Rann hit a communications button on the wall and barked:  
“T’Rann to the bridge! Report!”  
“Captain! Sir! The Vulcan… escaped!”  
“Then apprehend him the soonest that you can! We have his friend, he cannot have gone far! Computer, locate the Vulcan Spock…”  
“Vulcan Spock is not aboard the Venora”, the computer calmly replied. Kirk thought that it had a similar tone of voice to the one on the Enterprise. He felt a wave of relief and euphoria so overwhelming that he was unable to prevent it from showing on his face. T’Rann didn’t react to his expression, but he noticed and remembered it.  
“Sir, the shuttle bay… The shuttle is missing!”, the voice in the communicator exclaimed with audible distress.  
“What do you mean… How the hell did he get to the shuttle bay?”, V’Nress yelled.  
“The image from the brig… and the shuttle bay… it had been sabotaged, sir…”  
“By hell’s furies! How would the bloody Vulcan… Who…” A terrible suspicion made its way to T’Rann’s consciousness even as he was still not recovered from the shock. Kirk reveled in the expression of anxiety that showed on the Orion’s face when he demanded: “Computer, locate Rinsha!”  
“Rinsha is not aboard the Venora”, the computer impassively obliged. For one unguarded moment, T’Rann’s features fell in naked hurt and pain, before they contorted into a mask of anger.   
“Track them down!”, he yelled at the communicator. “Follow them! Warp 5, now, back toward the Federation space – I’ll bet that’s where they’re headed!”  
Before the other Orion finished acknowledging the orders, the ship was rocked by a powerful explosion, and the lights blinked several times before coming back online again.  
“Engineering! Report!”, V’Nress shouted angrily.  
“Sir… The crystal…”, came a mumbled reply after a long moment of silence.  
“What about it?” V’Nress was losing patience.  
“It… It’s gone… It went to pieces when we tried to go to warp, and the explosion damaged our warp drive… also our thrusters are inoperative for the time being… I’m sorry, sir, but we are adrift… We’ll call the chief engineer and try to repair…”  
“Rinsha is not aboard”, V’Nress cut him promptly, catching a glimpse of his captain’s horrible expression. “You’re on your own. Will you manage? And know that it’s probably her who sabotaged the drive.”  
“But… why… where…”, the shocked crewman stuttered out incoherently. Kirk almost felt sorry for him, he sounded so lost and distressed… but then he associated his voice with a ‘yes, yes, little human slut, just like this’, muttered when he was forced to suck him, and any shade of compassion disappeared, replaced by a dark satisfaction at the alien’s confusion.  
“Is this any business of yours?!”, V’Nress yelled, and then, realizing that the scared engineer was their best chance of getting any drive operational again, amended in a gentler voice: “I asked you if you could manage the repairs on your own. You’re the chief engineer now, D’Larr.”  
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I will do my best, sir, and we should be able to bring the thrusters back online in several hours. However, to go to warp, we would need a new crystal… aside from the repairs that will take much longer.”  
“Understood”, V’Nress answered coolly. He had managed to regain some of his composure. He looked at the half-naked Orions still crowded in the rec hall, and told them impatiently: “What do you need, a special invitation? You have heard. Anyone with experience in engineering go down to help D’Larr!”   
There was some movement, but there were still about fifteen people who remained. V’Nress directed a questioning look at T’Rann. Their situation was far from enviable: they were sitting ducks, without even a shuttle, desperately in need of a dilithium crystal. However, their situation was far from hopeless: with their thrusters repaired, they could limp to the nearest planet and try to search for it, buy it or get some other help. They were wealthy enough to have some leverage anywhere they went, and were never completely helpless. However, the dark expression on T’Rann’s face worried V’Nress; the Venora’s second in command knew very well that there was something more between the captain and his woman than sex and possession – as unlikely as it might sound, T’Rann could actually love Rinsha, and V’Nress didn’t blame him: she was a beautiful, intelligent, passionate woman. All the more cruel the blow must have been. V’Nress noticed that T’Rann wasn’t looking at him. Instead, his dark eyes were riveted to the huge blue ones of their human toy, and there was such depth of hatred in them that V’Nress almost pitied the pretty captive. Well, almost, but not quite. Dealing punishments was a pleasant enough distraction for him, especially if T’Rann was very angry.  
“So, your Vulcan friend left you behind and escaped, knowing full well we’ll take our anger out on you”, T’Rann told Kirk with cruel emphasis.  
“No. Your woman left you behind and escaped. My friend went with her to rescue me, and when he comes back, you will pay dearly for every single displeasure you have caused me”, Kirk replied, looking straight into T’Rann’s eyes, and his voice was strong and clear – far too strong and clear for a person bound to a table in an obscene position, surrounded by his rapists and all slimy with their come. Instead of exploding with anger at the cheeky answer, T’Rann only gave a mirthless half-smile that bode far worse than would a streak of profanity, and said levelly:  
“Perhaps, little whore. It’s too bad you won’t live to see it.” As if to prove his point, he activated the collar, and waited a full minute before turning it off again. His victim coughed, shook and panted, but after a few moments managed to reply:  
“You may kill me if you want. Spock is free, and that’s all I care about. Whatever you do, you can’t really hurt me.” It amazed V’Nress, who was observing the interaction, how sincere these words sounded, and this despite the fact that the human already knew first-handed how unthinkably brutal his tormentors could be. T’Rann, however, was not impressed. He smiled darkly again, then said:  
“You may think that now, but I assure you that my people will make you care again, very soon. Your concern about your friend is very touching; too bad it’s obviously not reciprocated. If the Vulcan cared about you the slightest bit, he would have found another way to escape than use you as a diversion. But you’re aware of it, aren’t you? Why would a decent, self-righteous Vulcan care about a little human slut, whose talents he had advertised to us in the first place? His intelligence lives up to Vulcans’ reputation, although I had thought the species less heartless. Leaving a friend, even a useless whore like you, at their enemies’ mercy, to be tortured, fucked, mutilated, fucked again, then slowly killed” – T’Rann made sure to pronounce each threat in a matter-of-fact, but emphatic way – “is a really cold-blooded action, even for an emotionless individual.”  
Kirk’s preservation instinct as well as his strong will somehow stopped him from crying out an outraged protest – no, his friend cared for him, would come back for him, hadn’t even left him of his own volition – but even despite his tight self-control, his eyes betrayed that some of T’Rann’s taunts did hit home; he really felt unworthy of Spock’s concern, too soiled, too filthy, too disgraced for him. The Orion spied the feeling, and turned to V’Nress, telling him with cruel satisfaction:  
“I have ship’s matters to attend to at the present time. I’m leaving him to your care, and I trust you will manage to make him regret staying behind as his uncaring friend’s shield. I no longer intend to sell him, so there isn’t any damage you must refrain from inflicting. Do to him whatever your imagination tells you will be painful for him and entertaining for you. Just don’t kill him: this delight is reserved for me. I’m leaving you assistants.”  
“You can count on me, sir”, V’Nress said with a smile, seconded by several satisfied grunts from those still remaining in the room. T’Rann left, and when V’Nress leant over him thoughtfully, Kirk had to admit that there was some fear in his heart. In order to make sure he mastered it, he teased V’Nress:  
“I hope you make it worth my while. You guys are such drags, I fear to be bored to death before Spock comes back for me.”  
In reaction, he was punched in the face, hard. Before he could recover, V’Nress backhanded him on the jaw, then punched him again and again. Kirk was a little surprised by how unrefined this particular form of violence was, and wondered idly if the Orion could work him over as good as some Starfleet cadets at a random bar a few years before. However, he quite soon discovered that the answer was yes, and that being beat to a pulp was not necessarily a picturesque exaggeration. He felt like the bones of his face would crash toward the inside of his skull, squashing his brain in the process. One of his eyes was already swollen shut, and the vision in the other one was swimming. His nose was broken, his lips split in several places, some of his teeth broken, his brain most likely concussed, and yet the punching didn’t relent, each new blow hitting severely damaged areas with fearful accuracy, without hesitation. As a last touch, V’Nress hit Kirk’s jaw several times, breaking it in three different places.   
“I hope you’re not bored”, he said after this, and he licked Kirk’s blood from his fists, seemingly pleased with the taste. “Not so pretty anymore, are you, sweetheart? I bet this Vulcan scum wouldn’t even recognize you if he saw you now. You really do look awful. But you know what, honey? I don’t mind. Your face may be a mess, but I think your throat is just as wet and tight and warm as ever.”  
After untying Kirk from the table, he unceremoniously pushed him down from it, and Kirk didn’t have the force to do anything to break the fall and avoid the painful crash with the deck. A brutal kick to his abdomen and several hands pulling at him had him on all fours, and V’Nress grabbed his hair and shoved himself into his damaged mouth, all the way down his throat, and started thrusting eagerly. Even if he wanted to bite, Kirk just couldn’t make any muscle in his face obey him. V’Nress was doing quite well without his cooperation: he was able to manipulate Kirk’s face just to put it at the angle that he desired, squeezing it against himself while he slammed repeatedly against the back of his throat. Unable to breathe through his mangled, blood-filled nose, Kirk was choking, and the pain from different fragments of his bones rubbing and piercing the flesh was so acute that when another Orion started to fuck his ass, he was able to note it only as a marginal disturbance. He couldn’t tell how long it lasted or how many people took their turns, or how many times he lost consciousness in the meantime, but the next time he came back to full awareness, he was bound to the table again, face-down, half-crazed with pain and no longer underestimating crude forms of violence. The next thing they chose was unrefined as well: he heard a loud crack in the air above him, and his back was struck with a heavy leather whip. The blows started falling in a rapid succession and he quickly understood that the Orions weren’t trying to get aroused from the spectacle, but were attempting to really hurt him, and soon succeeded: the whip cut skin and muscles, and after a longer while, when it continued falling with equal force on spaces already completely raw, the pain it was causing was nearly unbearable. Kirk would have fainted many times over, but N’Drell, present at the execution, shot him with a very powerful stimulant that kept him aware, although so overwhelmed with pain that he hardly noticed anymore when a little recess from the whipping was granted every now and then, so that one of his tormentors could fuck him without risking to take a blow himself. His collar was also used generously, whenever the Orions concluded that he was getting bored with the whipping alone. His translating chip must have got damaged during some of the proceedings, so he couldn’t understand when the aliens were talking Orion, but from time to time, they made the effort of addressing him in Standard, and usually just stressed out how alone he was, abandoned by his friend to take all the anger directed at the Vulcan. ‘It’s not true… Spock didn’t abandon me…’, Kirk tried to repeat to himself whenever he was able to think at all. ‘He will return… with the Enterprise… he will rescue me…’ But with time, the word ‘rescue’ was consequently replaced with ‘avenge’ in Kirk’s thoughts, and the word ‘abandon’ nested itself imperceptibly in his mind. Finally, when his entire back was just a bloody mess, he managed to black out for good, despite the stimulants.  
When he woke up once more, the Orions flipped him to his back, and he nearly passed out again when mangled flesh connected with the table. Water was being poured into his mouth and he accepted it gratefully, although he couldn’t really drink it, merely let it slide down his throat when it got there. He couldn’t see or hear much, but was aware when yet another person shoved his cock brutally in his abused hole and started thrusting at a cruel pace, making his tortured back rub excruciatingly against the hard surface. Somehow, Kirk recognized the feel: it was T’Rann, using him one last time, this time not for pleasure, but as a revenge. When he was finished, he circled the table and tried to put himself in the line of vision of Kirk’s only still more or less operational eye, and said:  
“I see that you have been well entertained. Look at yourself now. You’re not good for anything anymore, not even for a fuck. Even if your Vulcan friend found you on time, he wouldn’t know what to do with you. He would probably just abandon you again… if he could even recognize you. But I have an idea. Why don’t we label you for him? There’s still a lot of pristine skin on your chest, I think quite several labelling words could fit. Whore, slut, fuck toy, loose hole… I’m sure my crew will think of some more synonyms. We will also try several interesting calligraphy techniques: carving, burning, tattooing… What do you think? Do you like the idea? I don’t think you’re able to speak. But I’m sure you’ll like it: deep down you know that’s what you are. Too bad your friend isn’t coming back for you. Because you do in fact realize that he abandoned you, don’t you? Vulcan Spock abandoned you. Left you to me, so that I can do all this to you. Left you for dead, and to what death! Abandoned you. Abandoned you. Abandoned you.”

The Enterprise reached Annaris B after nearly a week of absence. The emergency that had diverted them, forcing them to leave their captain and first officer on the planet’s surface, had been dealt with quite easily, but they hadn’t wasted their time: a freighter, carrying a precious cargo of pergium to some planet in desperate need of it, suffered an incapacitating malfunction that not only jeopardized the delivery, but also risked a major explosion in the engineering, that could destroy the ship, the cargo and the crew. Scotty had been very quick with the repair, impatient to go back to retrieve his commanding officers, but he couldn’t break the laws of physics, so it took some time. Everyone was feeling slightly nervous, because – while the Annari seemed friendly enough and never harmed previous crews who had accidentally contacted them – they were a new race, non-humanoid and alien in many respects. However, as soon as they managed to reach the planet, anxious when neither Kirk nor Spock responded a hail at their communicators, a new distress signal reached them at the confines of their reception range.   
“This is incredible!”, Uhura exclaimed from the central seat, leaving it impatiently to take over the communications console and examine the signal by herself. “There is no way we leave here without finding the captain and Spock! Chekov, scan the planet first, and if you don’t find them, we’ll have to pay the Annari a visit…”  
An hour later, they were upset by the fact that the full scan yielded no results: there were no Vulcan or human biosigns on the planet. This could mean several things: they could be dead, they could have left the planet somehow, or be hidden in a place shielded from the sensors. Since the Annari civilization was both rather primitive and relatively insulated, finding a way to get off seemed the least likely; so was any kind of artificial shielding, but maybe there was some natural way of misleading a scan, like caves going deep into the mountains? This was the most promising option, although not the most probable: with unknown aliens, the most probable was always the option number one, but quite understandably, Uhura preferred to ignore its existence just now. Just as she was about to lead a landing party to the planet to investigate, Doctor McCoy showed up on the bridge.  
“We’ve already been here for an hour. Why aren’t they still in my sickbay, to check for indigestion, infection, and other attractions typically related to an extended stay on an alien planet?”  
“Our scanners failed to pick their biosigns”, Uhura explained. “I’m going down to check what’s wrong…”  
“Sorry, sir”, her replacement at the communications console, Ensign Palmer, protested weakly, “but what are we going to do with the distress signal? It’s being broadcasted insistently over and over, by an object moving in our direction at warp 2, someone may be in serious need…”  
“For all we know, our captain and first officer may be in serious need”, Uhura replied impatiently, “and I really hope they’re not hurt, because if they are, they’re in real trouble…”  
“A distress signal? Again?”, McCoy sounded surprised. “I had a bad feeling about this Annari mission… They’re a pre-warp civilization, we never had a reason to haunt them in the first place…”  
“Do you have anything essential to say, Doctor? We’re in a hurry here. Our officers are missing, there’s a distress code…”  
“Uhm… sir!” Ensign Palmer stopped the flow of Uhura’s speech. “There’s something rather weird about this signal.”  
“Weird how? Could you be more specific?”  
“They stopped broadcasting the typical distress sequence, and are now emitting something else… in the same manner, short and long signals, but another sequence… it makes me think of a word in Morse alphabet…”  
“Decode it! What word would it be?”, Uhura asked, intrigued.   
“I’m trying, but the word doesn’t seem to make any sense in Standard. It says… ICHAYA.”  
“Spock!”, Uhura yelled in shock.  
“Sir?”  
“It was the name of Spock’s pet sehlat”, Uhura explained. “It must be his way to attract our attention. He’s heading our way, insistently emitting the distress code…”  
“Whoa!”, McCoy intervened. “The last time we saw him and Jim, they were on Annaris B. In a week’s time, you think that they managed to get away from it, go somewhere, and they’re now rushing back signaling they’re in trouble? That’s a lot to process, even for them…”  
“But it’s exactly what must be happening”, Uhura answered soberly. “Helm! Plot an intercept course, and take us there at maximum warp. How much time until me meet?”  
“15 hours”, Sulu answered.   
“Ensign Palmer! Can we hail them?”  
“Out of range, sir.”  
“But we can certainly broadcast an answer in Morse?”  
“Yes, but it will be picked by the entire sector, just like their distress code…”  
“I realize that, Ensign, I’ve studied communications technology.”  
“Sorry, sir.” Ensign Palmer’s face was covered by an unhappy blush. Uhura immediately felt guilty.  
“No, it’s all right, you were right to point it out, just in case I forgot. We will broadcast “sehlat” as answer. Only three times. Spock will understand that we are coming, and nobody else will make any sense of this exchange”  
“Yes, sir.”   
“And, Ensign. As soon as they’re in communication range, hail them.”  
“Of course, sir.”  
They had to wait nearly 10 hours before they managed to hail Spock, devoting this time to the wildest conjectures. McCoy didn’t have any patients requiring his continual presence at this time, so he spent most of this time on the bridge, hovering over Uhura in an annoying manner. Somehow, it was a relief to know that the missing officers were not dead on Annaris B, which was the most probable possibility after they stopped replying to hails and weren’t found by the Enterprise’s scanners. But the situation didn’t exactly discourage worry, and Uhura and McCoy were especially concerned for the wellbeing of those two: Kirk was McCoy’s best friend, and this since their time in Starfleet Academy, while Spock was Uhura’s ex-boyfriend, no longer in a relationship but still dearly loved. The doctor and the communications officer had to do all their possible not to infect the entire bridge with their anxiety. Finally, the communication was possible and, after a few moments adjusting the instruments, the viewscreen showed Spock inside what looked like a tiny shuttle, in the company of a green-skinned, extremely attractive alien woman. Both seemed distressed, but the look on Spock’s face, usually so calm, was downright haunted.   
“Spock!”, Uhura exclaimed when she saw him. “I mean, Commander! We picked up your signals… What’s the nature of your emergency? Where’s Captain Kirk?”  
“He is the emergency”, Spock answered, and it looked like speaking cost him a tremendous effort. He looked ill, weak, and Uhura noticed some strange jewelry around his neck. McCoy paled several tones. “Please continue on your course at your best speed. Time is of the essence, and I strongly fear that however soon we arrive, we will be too late to be of help…” His voice sounded defeated, despaired. Bridge officers traded glances, unsettled by obvious emotion in the Vulcan’s demeanor.  
“What happened?”, McCoy asked quietly.  
“The friendly attitude of the Annari suddenly changed, without us knowing what went wrong to this day. We were beaten and cut, then bound to a tree and left to die, injured and dehydrated. Captain Kirk had taken the brunt of the abuse and was in critical condition… We had no hope of rescue.” Spock’s voice trailed off as he relived these horrific moments.  
“Obviously, you were rescued”, McCoy prompted him.  
“Yes. By the crew of an Orion ship, the Venora, orbiting Annaris B without contacting the Annari. They saved our lives and healed our injuries, but… they did not treat us well. They intended to sell me to a connoisseur of rare species, and the captain… they… mistreated him…” Spock’s voice shook and he turned away from the screen. The Orion girl continued for him:  
“He was pretty, so they used him as their fuck toy.” She stopped, confused by the shocked glances of the Enterprise crew. Spock hid his face in his hands. He seemed on the edge of a nervous breakdown; or maybe far over the edge.  
“What is that supposed to mean?”, McCoy asked, although technically, he did understand what the term meant.  
“Well, you know, their pet”, Rinsha explained naturally. “They used him for their pleasure, but they were very rough…”  
“Enough!”, Spock interrupted her. He turned back to face the viewscreen and finished the story: “The day before the Venora’s planned rendezvous with my buyer, Rinsha sabotaged her ship’s warp drive and helped me escape. The other Orions were so obsessed with their… use of the captain that Rinsha found him to be a perfect diversion. I fear that they might not forgive the captain for having made our escape possible… hence my insistence on haste.”  
The silence on the bridge was absolute, until McCoy, as pale as a sheet and trembling, passed Uhura’s chair and asked, looking straight at Spock’s face at the viewscreen:  
“Are you saying that you left Jim at the hands of a bunch of sadists, who had repeatedly and brutally raped him before, and whom you suspect of wanting to torture him to death? You green-blooded, cold-hearted…”  
“You’re out of line, Doctor!”, Uhura yelled at him nervously, but there were forced tones in her voice suggesting that she was trying to convince herself that McCoy was wrong.  
“Yes, I did leave him to them”, Spock answered McCoy in a whisper, and his head dropped in a gesture of absolute dejection. His Orion companion yelled at McCoy, visibly outraged:  
“How dare you? How heartless do you have to be to say something like this to him?! Can’t you see what he’s been through? Nearly killed by the Annari, kidnapped by slavers, forced to watch his friend be abused day after day, and sometimes also take part in it… This escape was the only logical choice, and yet I had to trick him, shock him with the collar and tie him to prevent him from diverting the shuttle straight back to the Venora! If anyone is guilty of anything, it’s me, not Vulcan Spock. Any of this wasn’t his fault.”  
McCoy felt deeply ashamed that an alien showed his crewmate and friend more compassion than he did. Despite his anxiety for Kirk, he suddenly understood how awfully difficult Spock’s position was.  
“I’m sorry, Spock. I spoke before I thought… I’m sure you did the right thing. Forgive me?”  
“There is nothing to forgive, Doctor”, Spock’s voice as he answered was numb, abstracted. “Your grasp on the facts was quite correct.”  
“Bullshit!” McCoy answered, but he realized that his thoughtless reaction had dealt a wound that would be difficult to heal. Or more likely, had just thrown salt on a wound already angrily inflamed.  
“We will continue this conversation once we’ve intercepted your shuttle”, Uhura interrupted. “We’re already at our best speed, but maybe if I nudge Scotty he’ll give me more. We’ll see you soon and rescue the captain together. Just… hold on, Spock, okay?”  
“I will, obviously, await our meeting”, Spock answered evasively, and ended the communication. The bridge of the Enterprise was as silent as a graveyard, until finally McCoy said:  
“I’ll check if we have enough blood Jim’s type stored, and replicate some more meds he’s not allergic to.”  
Uhura nodded, and McCoy left the bridge.  
“Do you think he will still be alive?”, someone asked, and there was no answer for a while, until Uhura replied in a voice stronger than she had thought herself capable of at the moment:  
“Of course he’ll be alive. He’s our captain, the strongest and most stubborn individual I’ve ever known. We will find him and everything will end up being just fine.” 

15 hours later, with Spock and Rinsha safely aboard, the Enterprise managed to locate the Venora. Its warp engines were offline, and although the Orions had managed to repair their thrusters and move away from their previous location, their course was easy to guess, since there was a dilithium rich planet in proximity. Spock, who wasn’t physically injured in any way, was now back in the central chair, free from the collar that Scotty had somehow managed to disable and open. As soon as they reached the Venora, he ordered to shield up and fire, targeting its weapons array. The Orion ship managed several shots of its plasma weapon, but not enough to damage the Enterprise, before receiving a deadly shot to their engineering section, that not only disabled their weapons and shields, but put all their power off and left them dead, adrift and with very limited life support.   
“Scan for human life signs! Now!”, Spock ordered, although Chekov was already doing it.  
“Got him!”, he exclaimed, “but the life signs are very weak… I think he’s injured…”  
“Transporter room!” Spock barked into the communicator. “Beam the captain up directly to sickbay! After that, bring a security team to the transporter room and beam the Orions up by groups of five, then take them to the brig…”  
“Aye, aye, sir.”  
Seeing the haunted look in Spock’s eyes, Sulu proposed:  
“The Venora is disabled, sir. We are in control of everything. There isn’t any danger, so why don’t you go to sickbay, while we’ve got it here?”  
“Thank you, Lieutenant”, Spock answered, and he disappeared like a ghost, without sparing a glance to the dying Venora on screen. As soon as he left the turbolift, he ran like a lunatic until he stormed into sickbay, his heart pounding in his chest. Kirk was already there, lying exposed on a biobed, already dripping with his blood. McCoy was just standing next to him, frozen, the tricorder in his hand, but too shocked to actually use it. Spock pushed past him and stood next to Kirk, taking in the battered body, the chest covered with insults that were carved, burned, and tattooed all over it, and finally the bloody mess that used to be Jim’s face. One of his eyes was open, no more than a narrow slit, a dulled, terrified blue light indicating that he was conscious, hurting, although not necessarily fully aware of his surroundings. Trying to retain some hold of himself, in an attempt to soothe him, Spock gently took Kirk’s hand and said to him:  
“You are safe, Jim. It is me, Spock. I have come back for you.”  
The last thing he expected was an answer, because with nearly every other bone in his face broken or downright smashed, speaking seemed the last thing Kirk could be capable of, and yet he managed just three words, slurred and whispered, but audible enough for Spock to comprehend them perfectly:  
“Spock… abandoned me.”   
It was Spock’s turn to freeze. His heart stopped beating for several seconds, as he realized in despair that, despite having accepted Rinsha’s scheme so eagerly, Jim ended up thinking just that: that he had been left behind, nothing more than a handy diversion, to be abused by the Orions in whatever way they saw fit. Without fully realizing it, Spock became subliminally aware of a very quiet, monotone buzz that wasn’t coming from any of the familiar sickbay devices, but concentrating on the sinking feeling in his heart, he simply ignored it. Meanwhile, McCoy managed to somehow gather his wits, and he started waving his tricorder over Kirk’s body. The machine started whirling, beeping and emitting angry red lights, which added to McCoy’s frown told Spock that the battle was far from won.  
“And what the hell is this?”, McCoy swore suddenly, attracting Spock’s attention. “There’s an object… inside him.”  
“I believe the term is, an anal plug”, Spock supplied numbly, following the doctor’s glance down Kirk’s body and noticing a flat, metallic dark blue ending of said device.  
“I fucking know what it’s called… It must go out, he’s a mess down there, I’m reading massive internal bleeding… a clot…” As the doctor’s hand went toward the plug to pull it out, it was suddenly immobilized by the Vulcan’s iron grip, then pulled firmly aside.  
“You must not touch it”, Spock said. “If this thing is what I think it is, it will explode at the slightest pull.”  
“Explode?... What do you mean, explode? They put a fucking bomb in his ass? What kind of twisted fuckers are these people?! I can’t treat him with this thing inside!”  
“I must retrieve the remote control and disable it. How much time do I have?”  
“I… I can’t tell. I’ll try to stabilize him, but he needs surgery… Shit, I can’t even sedate him properly, he’s been pumped full of stimulants… Do you realize that he must have been aware during most of this?... That he’s aware and hurting even now?”  
“I will leave it to you, Doctor. Just remember, do not touch the plug, or you will both most likely be killed by the explosion. Spock to the bridge.”  
“Sulu here. How is the captain?”  
“Locate Rinsha and send her to sickbay immediately. Have we apprehended the Orion captain, T’Rann?”  
“We have transported all the surviving Orions to our ship, but I have no idea who is who. Some are in the brig, but most of them didn’t fit, and are being held in cargo bay 2, properly cut off by a forcefield and guarded. There are thirty six of them, six more were killed in an explosion in the engineering when we blew up their weapons… I can’t say who they were.”  
“What about the Venora?  
“We damaged her structural integrity. She will fall apart in a matter of minutes, but there are no more survivors aboard, so…”  
“Lieutenant! Try to keep her in one piece as long as possible! We might be forced to transport to her, searching for a piece of equipment instrumental for saving the captain’s life…”  
“It will not be possible. She’s falling apart, sir, there’s nothing we can do…”  
“Then I must hope that T’Rann was among the survivors, and that he had the control with him. Send Scotty here to deal with the captain’s collar.”  
“Aye, sir.”  
At this moment, Rinsha entered sickbay. She was treated as an ally and allowed a complete freedom of movement, as well as free access to all unrestricted parts of the ship. She glanced anxiously around, then noticed Kirk on the biobed.  
“You were successful, Vulcan Spock!”, she exclaimed merrily, ignoring Kirk’s terrifying condition. “He’s alive! You saved him!”  
“Not necessarily”, Spock answered, indicating the protruding ending of the plug. “Is this what you once told me about? A gha’mort?” She paled visibly, then slowly nodded. “What do we do to disable and remove it safely?”  
“We need the remote control”, Rinsha said. “I can hear it buzzing, which means it has been armed. I’m pretty sure T’Rann has it with him. It has two switches: one will make it explode, while the other one will disarm it. But they’re programmed individually each time, so there’s no way of knowing which does what, and I don’t think T’Rann will tell us. I bet he tried to set it off already, but it has a small range, so your brig must be too far.”  
“All right. Come with me, we will have a talk with him”, Spock told her.   
“You mustn’t touch it”, she warned McCoy nervously as she started following Spock, and, completely resigned, he nodded his comprehension, then turned to Kirk to try and help him as much as possible under the circumstances.  
Finding T’Rann wasn’t difficult: he was among the ones who ended up in the brig, along with V’Nress, N’Drell, L’Vorr and several others that Spock recognized. Seeing them come, T’Rann dealt them a malicious smile.  
“How do you like the filthy human company, you bitch?”, he asked Rinsha in a venomous voice. “Are they fun enough to satisfy your insatiable lust?”  
“I’m satisfied”, Rinsha answered noncommittally. “You lost. Give us the control back, and it might be treated as an attenuating circumstance at your trial.”  
“So… you discovered the gha’mort before you pulled it off and blew half of your sickbay to pieces. That’s quite a shame, but… you still haven’t won. Here’s the control. It has two identical switches, and there’s no way of knowing which does what. So, you’ll have to gamble with the little whore’s life, or leave him to die slowly of his injuries! What a decision! I don’t envy you, Vulcan… You set him up as a good fuck, then abandoned him to my wrath, and now very possibly you will finally kill him… Some friend you are… I think I prefer to be your enemy… There’s one thing I regret, however: not having fucked you as well.”  
Rinsha could see that T’Rann’s words were having a great effect on Spock, but probably more than by the insults, he was tormented by his inability to ensure that he would press the correct switch and therefore, be able to save Kirk. The knowledge that they might have rescued him from the Venora for nothing, just to see him suffer further and die a horrible death, was indeed destabilizing. A security officer retrieved the remote control that T’Rann handed him, but the switches were indeed identical and telling them apart was impossible. Spock eyed the device dejectedly, but decided that 50 percent weren’t acceptable odds for deciding about whether Kirk would be dead or alive. He ordered the security officers to pull T’Rann out of the crowded brig, and drag him to an empty briefing room for a face-to-face interrogation, accompanied by Rinsha and a security officer in question. Once they were there, the Orion tied up and held at phaser point, Spock told him:  
“You have one last chance to tell me which switch disarms the gha’mort. In case you refuse, I will retrieve the information in another fashion. Unpleasant for you.”  
“Oh! A Starfleet officer threatening a disarmed, helpless captive! I wish to file a complaint… I’m very curious to know your method of making me speak. Will you torture me? Beat me? Fuck me, perhaps? Would you have it in you, Vulcan?”  
“I have a much more efficient, and less disgusting method.” Trying to fight revulsion at the thought of joining T’Rann’s mind to his, but knowing that it could be Kirk’s only chance, Spock pressed splayed fingers of his right hand to the Orion’s temple and intoned: “Your mind to my mind, your thoughts to your thoughts…” The contact immediately proved unpleasant: a cold, wicked, hateful mind flooded Spock’s instantly, not only not trying to shield itself in any manner, but actively searching Spock’s mind out. While Spock tried to reach the precise memory of setting the grueling device, T’Rann forcefully pushed in his direction the images of himself, raping and taunting an already tortured Kirk, whispering against his mangled face that he had been abandoned, then carving outrageous insults into the still unmarred skin of his chest… Those memories were extremely unsettling for Spock, who couldn’t do anything to protect himself against the shock and hurt, but even worse was knowing from the inside how perverse satisfaction, what dark, inhuman joy the Orion was experiencing at the sight of his victim’s agony. As the tortures lasted on and on, Spock had to watch Kirk, visibly overcome with pain, beg his tormentors to end the misery and finally allow him to die, to which the only reaction were laughs and more pain: collar shocks, punches to the most battered areas of his body, brutal sexual abuse… At the long last, the Orions got bored and that was when T’Rann inserted the gha’mort inside his victim’s body and, after fucking him with it during several excruciating moments, finally programmed the remote control and armed it with… the left switch. Tormented and exhausted, Spock managed to break contact and slumped to the floor, half-conscious.   
“What did you do to him?”, Rinsha asked T’Rann, kneeling over the Vulcan with concern. T’Rann laughed.  
“Is he your new lover? If so, I think you made an irrational exchange… They say Vulcans have strong minds, but this one’s weaker than any Orion or alien I’ve ever had contact with! I didn’t do anything to him: that’s he who assaulted my mind without consent… I merely showed him last moments his human friend spent on the Venora before you apprehended us. I thought he’d like to know…”  
“Shut up! You really have no heart”, Rinsha answered. She poured some water into Spock’s mouth, and he regained his senses, but the look in his eyes was again several shades darker, more haunted. All her being was flooded with compassion for this yet another blow that the Vulcan had to take.  
“You must be strong now, Vulcan Spock”, she told him. “Your human friend needs you… Have you retrieved the information?”  
“Yes”, Spock nodded, gathering himself up from the floor, leaning against her heavily for support.  
“You think you saw my memory”, T’Rann commented maliciously. “But what if it was what I deliberately wanted to show you? Can you be sure what you saw was the actual situation, rather than a cheat? Sure enough to bet his life on it? Maybe you should try something more secure: a surgery, for example. If your medic manages to cut through the whore’s belly to get to the plug from the other side, you may yet be able to disarm it manually… risk free…”  
“Take him back to the brig”, Spock told the security officers, then headed back to sickbay. “Thank you, Rinsha. You are free to go.”  
“No, I’ll come with you. I hope you’ve got it right.”   
“I cannot be sure of it. I think that what I saw was how this situation actually happened, but if T’Rann had wanted to trick me, shocked as I was by what he was showing me, he probably might have succeeded… I cannot even calculate the odds… I might just… fail him again. But this is my best call – my only call.”  
When they arrived to sickbay, McCoy threw himself at Spock, yelling about the urgent need to perform a surgery on Kirk and asking if the Vulcan wanted Jim to die, since he delayed his treatment like this. With Rinsha’s gentle assistance, Spock managed to explain the situation to McCoy, who lost all remnants of calm and hope.   
“So, you saw something, you aren’t sure if it’s true or not, and we’ll just play Russian roulette with Jim’s life… Why, that’s great, in the past week he was only nearly murdered without a reason by the Annari, raped repeatedly by a bunch of soulless beasts, abandoned as a diversion for his best friend’s escape, tortured crazy… a death by an exploding butt plug seems a fitting end to all this misery!”  
“Doctor! It’s not Vulcan Spock’s fault, none of this!”, Rinsha exclaimed angrily, but Spock interrupted her:  
“Doctor McCoy has only stated the facts. Now everyone clear sickbay, and permit me to disarm the gha’mort”, he requested, moving to Kirk’s bed with the remote control squeezed convulsively in his hand. Soon, the last people moved out of the area to wait outside the nearest bulkhead, and only Kirk, Spock and McCoy remained. Spock contemplated once more his friend’s battered figure, and made his final decision. He knelt by the biobed, pressing slightly the side of his head against Kirk’s abdomen, still adorned by the Vulcan insult he had carved, holding the tiny device on sight, ready for use.   
“Get out, Doctor. You are wasting time that Jim does not have.”  
McCoy eyed him for a moment in complete astonishment, then, when understanding dawned, protested violently:  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Positioned like this, you have no chance to survive if the devilish contraption blows up after all!”  
“Such is my purpose, in case you haven’t come to this conclusion yourself”, Spock explained with eerie calm.   
“Spock, for heaven’s sake, you can’t just… throw away your life! We’ve done our best to save Jim, you’ve gone as far as to probe a monster’s mind, but that’s not a reason to risk death while you can do it safely from behind the nearest bulkhead! Spock, for all that’s sacred, Jim wouldn’t want this…”   
“I have failed him twice already, when all I was doing was trying to rescue him. On Annaris B, I bought his life at a horrible price… for him to pay. To avoid our final separation and give him hope of freedom, I effectively left him on the Venora, although I was maneuvered into it, but the result was again, him paying all the price for my freedom. If I fail him again, I do not wish to have a chance to learn it. I cannot stand in a safe distance and risk watching his insides staining the pristine white walls of your sickbay.”  
“For heaven’s sake, Spock! Where the hell is your logic when you need it? And how do you think I will feel, if it so happens that T’Rann did manage to trick you, and I’ll have to watch both of my best friends smeared at the pristine white walls of my sickbay?”  
“You will feel bad, Doctor, but at this moment, this is only a secondary concern to me.”  
“Shit, you green-blooded hobgoblin! I can override you on this: I’m the fucking CMO, and you’re just about to put your health to goddam risk!”  
“Doctor, remain here one moment longer and I will neck pinch you, then throw your unconscious weight behind that bulkhead. Do you not prefer to go of your own volition? Just… for once, indulge in your human superstition and… wish us luck.”  
McCoy watched Spock with utter exasperation several more moments, trying to figure out some other way to make him see reason, but it dawned on him that Spock’s action, while potentially suicidal, wasn’t entirely illogical. If Kirk was to die now, in this horrific manner, what would life be like for Spock? An unbearable torment, guilt, grief, perhaps insanity.  
“Good luck, Spock”, he whispered, enveloping in a loving glance these two friends that he could very well be seeing alive for the last time. Then he left.

When Kirk woke up, it was to overwhelming pain in about his entire body. He tried to open his eyes, but it meant more pain. The images of the Orions beating him beyond his capacity to endure, raping him, cutting him, suddenly came to life, causing massive panic. He simply could not take any more of this, they had to finally let him die… Although speaking meant much more pain, he quietly pleaded:  
“Please, no more… Please end this… no more… please… please…”  
He was rewarded by a hand squeezing his, and another in his hair. He jerked away instinctively, but the hands weren’t bruising, yanking or tugging, but caressing gently. They withdrew when he flinched, and a soft, calming, familiar voice spoke to him warmly:  
“It’s alright, Jimmy, you’re safe. You’re on the Enterprise. The nightmare’s over. Spock rescued you.”  
He made a new attempt at opening his eyes, and managed to open one. His vision was blurred, but in a dim light, he managed to make out the contours of a familiar face hovering over him with an expression of concern.   
“Bones!”, he mumbled.  
“Yes! Yes, kid, it’s your physician, and I’m telling you, you’ve just given me the fright of a lifetime.”  
“I… I hurt…”, he complained weakly.   
“You’ve been seriously injured. I’m doing my best, but I’ve already pumped you full of everything that there is. If it’s intolerable, I can sedate you again. Where does it hurt?”  
“Head… face… back… and down there, inside…”  
“Yeah, well. You had two dozen fractures and cracks in your face alone, some of them open or completely messed up… I tried to realign everything as best I could and applied the osteoregen, but it will take some time. Your back is covered with regen gel, but there’s still a long way to go. Your body is not cooperating with the regeneration process. You had a massive infection that weakened you further… You’re so freaking lucky to be alive at all.”  
“I can’t see you well…”  
“You were beaten so hard that both your eyes were damaged and will need surgical intervention, but don’t worry, at least one should be reparable.”  
“At least… one…? Your famous… bedside manner…”  
“I’m telling you, kid, you’re lucky to be alive, many times over.”  
“Don’t feel… very lucky.”  
There was such hurt in this short sentence, told in a shaky voice, that McCoy’s heart squeezed in his chest to a tight knot.   
“Listen, kid”, he answered, barely able to prevent his own voice from shaking as well, “you’ve been through hell. But now we’ve gotcha, okay? I’ll sedate you now, no need to suffer further… I’m really sorry for what they did to you”, he added, swallowing past the lump in his throat.  
“Hey, Bones… Just beating and fucking, nothin’ new for me…”  
“If you think that this is funny…”, McCoy answered, scandalized, unsure if he preferred Kirk openly vulnerable or trying to be cocky.  
“Bones… what about Spock?”  
“What about him? He’s the one who saved you, Jim. He hurtled across space like crazy in the tiny Orion shuttle. He hailed us like crazy, and when we didn’t react, he invented a code to make sure we got the message. He defeated the Orions, figured out how to disarm a bomb they had put inside your body… You owe your life to him, to this brave Orion girl, and last but not least, to my humble medical talents…”  
“Where is he?”  
“You mean Spock? Why, he’s acting captain, he’ll be on the bridge now…” McCoy spied hurt on Kirk’s face again, and wasn’t sure whether it was caused only by the pain of his injuries, or something he said. “The next time you wake up, I’ll tell him you want to speak to him, but now I need you to rest some more, okay?”  
“If he even wants to…” Kirk answered, and his voice sounded tearful.  
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Jim, but the hobgoblin doesn’t care about anything but you… He comms me every five minutes to ask how you’re doing! He doesn’t eat or sleep, but spends all his time after his shifts haunting my sickbay and staring at your face, that’s kinda still messy now. Don’t worry about anything. Just rest.” With this, McCoy depressed a sedative into Kirk’s arm, and the captain fell asleep again.   
However, when he thought about Kirk’s reaction, it got him thinking. Spock was really haunting sickbay and asking about Kirk’s health, but whenever he glimpsed at the life signs monitor first signs of Jim waking up, he immediately found things to do and disappeared before Kirk could open his eyes. Later, when McCoy called him to make him come to sickbay and talk to a conscious, more stable Kirk, he heard nonsensical excuses and understood that Spock effectively was avoiding Jim, as absurd as it might seem. Kirk, on his side, stopped asking about Spock, and several days passed by with Kirk stronger and healthier each day, but also more unhappy, and Spock becoming more and more of an expert in finding excuses. McCoy managed to regenerate more or less Kirk’s mangled back and face, perform a surgery on his eyes, fight off all remnants of infection, but the captain was still as weak as a kitten, and tortured by frequent flashbacks of his horrifying ordeal. McCoy caught Spock several times, especially at night, hovering over Kirk, staring intently at his face, sometimes even touching it tentatively, cautiously, and then escaping at the slightest stir. At first completely at a loss to make any sense of this behavior, McCoy eventually understood that the traumatizing situation they had been through together must have created some chasm between them that they were both afraid to touch. He knew from Rinsha that Spock had advertised Kirk’s body to the Orions as the only way to save him; that he had later been forced to watch Kirk raped, and to carve a demeaning word on his stomach, not to mention, to leave Kirk behind. He imagined that Spock was feeling incredibly guilty, and was avoiding Kirk for this reason, and although his guilt was unwarranted, since nothing that happened to Kirk was actually Spock’s fault, this feeling was understandable under the circumstances. But there was also something wrong on Jim’s part. By the sheer unhappiness that he saw reflected in Kirk’s face at any mention of Spock, by the blush that covered his cheeks at these occasions, McCoy came to suspect that Kirk felt ashamed about having been watched in this most humiliating situation, and maybe assumed that Spock avoided him out of disdain. It was obviously untrue, and McCoy couldn’t bear the thought that Kirk, traumatized as he was, could torment himself further by such an unfounded and hurtful assumption. His suspicions were confirmed once, when he heard Kirk repeat during a nightmare that made him trash in his bed, sweat and tremble: “I’m not a whore, Spock! I’m not! Don’t believe them!” This convinced him definitively that something needed to be done about these two. After many hesitations, he gathered his wits and went to talk to Spock in his quarters. The Vulcan welcomed him stiffly and nearly dismissed him as soon as he learned that it wasn’t some emergency with the captain that had brought him. After some awkward and truly pathetic hedging, McCoy finally managed to choke out what he had come to say:  
“Look, Spock, Jim is healing quite well physically, considering. There’s still way to go, but it’s much better than it was when we rescued him.”  
“I am gratified to hear it.”  
“However, that concerns only his physical condition. Emotionally, I don’t see any progress. He is experiencing severe flashbacks, with alarming frequency. He doesn’t want to talk to the crew and hardly speaks to those who come to visit him. He flinches away whenever anyone attempts to touch him, and as you imagine, the nurses do it quite often. He won’t speak to me much about it, but… what happened to him is extremely damaging to self-esteem. He needs reassurance from those closest to him that, despite being victim of horrific abuse, he has not lost their affection and respect. If he doesn’t get that, I don’t think he’ll be able to go back to his former self, or captain a starship again.”  
Spock seemed fairly shocked by all that McCoy was saying, but the last remark made him interrupt:  
“But, Doctor… you certainly cannot mean that Jim will remain unfit for resuming his duties…”  
“That’s precisely what I think, Spock. To captain a starship, one needs assurance, self-reliance… To lead people, you can’t avoid their glances and burn with shame whenever someone looks you in the face too directly…”  
“But… it has been less than a week… Surely the captain will work through the trauma…”  
“I hope he will, Spock, but not if he thinks those closest to him disdain him because of the abuse he has suffered”, McCoy answered, glaring openly at Spock and hoping that he will get the hint.  
“But… I am sure that neither you, nor any other crewperson has done anything that could cause such doubts…”  
“Spock, for goodness’ sake!”, McCoy lost patience. “Really? Isn’t there by chance one crewmember who avoids him, hides on the bridge or in his quarters, invents the most idiotic pretexts just to avoid seeing him, and makes him feel like shit while he should be the first to support him?”  
“Who, Doctor? Who is this person? I will make sure that they make amends…”  
McCoy stared at Spock quite shocked by his reply. So, the Vulcan really had no idea about what a devastating effect his behavior was having on Jim! But that meant that the events on the Venora must have been even more traumatizing for him than the doctor had assumed. He had to proceed with more caution. Looking straight into Spock’s eyes, but making sure that his voice sounded soft and gentle, McCoy said:  
“You are this person, Spock. I described your behavior.”  
Now was the Vulcan’s turn to look surprised.  
“But… Doctor, you are speaking without any sense. After everything I have done to Jim, after how I caused his ordeal and left him to suffer unimaginable agony, how would I dare show my face to him? Surely I must be the very last person he desires to see.”  
“Shit, Spock!” McCoy’s patience was on a leave of absence again. “Don’t fucking pretend to really believe this crap! Since he first opened his eyes after surgery, half-conscious with pain, he did nothing but ask about you… He thinks you’re avoiding him because he was fucked by a ship full of Orions, so you think he’s a whore and you disdain him too much to even go speak with him.”  
“It is impossible”, Spock protested weakly. “I told him on the Venora that I respected him; it would be illogical to think that being victim of rape makes one disrespectable… But when he was first transported to the Enterprise and I spoke to calm him, he said that I abandoned him…”  
“For fuck’s sake, Spock! He was hardly aware of anything! You told me yourself that in T’Rann’s memories, they repeated it to Jim over and over in order to torture him – he was just unable to prevent this false statement from nesting in his mind, in the condition they put him in! And now because of this unknowingly uttered sentence you’re permitting him to think that you disdain him, that you think he’s a whore… You know what? You’re accusing yourself of having set him up as a good fuck, having carved an insult in his skin, having left him to be tortured – but in all these cases, you had no choice other than to let him die… Now, you’re torturing him on your own volition, and I find this unforgivable. Do you know what I heard him repeat in his nightmare? He said ‘Spock, I’m not a whore’! Do you now believe me how he feels?!”  
Spock was staring at him, speechless, frozen, and for a moment McCoy thought that he might have exaggerated with the harshness of his words. He continued in a milder tone:  
“I realize that what you guys went through was a fucking hell on earth. I wouldn’t trade places with any of you, and I feel extremely sorry for what both Jim and you had to endure. But Spock, you have no right to leave him alone with this burden. You abandoned him on the Venora because you had no choice; but you have a choice now. Why are you choosing to abandon him again?”  
“Doctor”, Spock finally spoke, “I did not realize that my behavior was causing Jim pain. I merely wanted to spare him the disgrace of having to deal with a failure like myself. Why did you not tell me all this sooner?”  
“Sorry… I figured you were hurt, needed time…”  
“I would never take time if I knew that it was harming Jim”, Spock answered with a disarming honesty. “Can I go talk to him right now?”  
“I… I believe you can, just give me a moment to make sure nobody will disturb you…”  
McCoy went running to sickbay and cleared it of all non-essential personnel and guests, to ensure Kirk and Spock the much needed privacy. If Jim was to even begin the difficult healing process, he and Spock had to explain all the misunderstandings that were visibly huge between them.   
Soon after that, the Vulcan, true to his promise, showed up in sickbay and went straight to Kirk’s bed. He was visibly nervous, but there was also some relief in him at the prospect of speaking to Jim, even if the human was going to tell him off; in fact, he had desperately missed Jim, although he wouldn’t admit it. He took in the captain’s form greedily, trying to inspect every detail for signs of returning health or lingering injury. Kirk’s face was now looking more or less normal: there was still visible bruising in various places, and some cuts were still unhealed, but the bones had been realigned and regenerated, and both his eyes were open and able to see clearly. He was lying on the biobed, fully supported by it, but propped slightly higher than had been possible at the beginning, and his back was still separated from the bedsheets by a thin layer of regen gel, mixed with painkillers. Beneath the colorful bruises, he was pale and that made his incredibly blue eyes look bigger and darker than they actually were; his drawn, thinned features gave him an air of vulnerability, fragility, as if he could fall apart any minute. At Spock’s sight, he twitched visibly, and the expression on his face seemed undecided between joy and nervousness. Warned by McCoy, Spock understood that Kirk feared rejection and disdain from him, and this thought sent a spike of pain through his heart. He should have never allowed Kirk to feel like this about him.  
“Hi, Jim. You look much improved. How are you feeling?”, he asked, sitting down on a chair next to the bed.  
“Lousy”, Kirk answered in a small voice. “But Bones says I’m doing fine, so I suppose he’s right. He’s the doctor here. How about you, are you doing fine?”  
“Yes”, Spock muttered noncommittally. “I apologize for not having come to visit you earlier…”  
“Oh, don’t mention it. You… you are not obliged to come and see me”, Kirk said, licking his mouth and watching nervously to the side. “I’m most certainly not a pleasant sight right now, and… I figure you have seen only too much of me anyway… on the Venora.”  
“My absence has nothing to do with the situations I watched you in”, Spock answered quickly, mortified by the reasons that Kirk assigned to his delay in showing up. “I merely thought that you would not wish to see me. After everything I did to you, it would be quite understandable… Your first reaction after seeing me on the Enterprise was saying that I abandoned you, but I was merely endeavoring to fulfill my promise…”  
“I’m sorry, Spock…”, Kirk interjected quickly. “I wasn’t fully aware of what I was saying. It was T’Rann… he repeated this to me all the time… I was dazed with pain… my mind must have picked it up against my will… I know you didn’t abandon me, I was the one who set you up, with Rinsha… And you did keep your promise, even though partly against your will, while I kinda screwed up with mine. I had promised you to survive, but I ended up begging the Orions to kill me…”  
“I know. You kept your promise, Jim: you survived, and that is the greatest gift you could have given me. But at the beginning on the Venora, you seemed furious… You said…”  
“Hell, Spock, I’m sorry!” Kirk was now agitated, he managed to sit up in his bed a little, leaning in Spock’s direction. “I know I was awful to you… I knew it wasn’t funny to watch me mouth fucked by the entire Orion crew, but I was just so shocked, so pissed… I wanted to hurt you because you were the only one I could reach, and you had given me a convenient excuse… I wish I had behaved in another way…”  
“It does not matter, Jim. I understand. You had every right to be angry.”  
“No, I didn’t. You had been nearly killed on Annaris B, just like me… I’m the captain, Spock, I was responsible for us, and where did I get us? Bleeding out tied to fucking trees in a fucking alien jungle! You were just trying to help… But I just… I guess it hurt that you had to say just that to the Orions, that I was a good fuck, among all other things that you could have said… And then, you said that I had performed all right, so visibly, it had all been true…” Kirk’s face turned a dark shade of red, his voice trailed off, and he looked down. Spock could not bear to see him so humiliated.  
“Jim, if I could take this one reaction back, I would… Please believe that I did not mean it. It escaped me against all logic, because I was feeling guilty, and your accusations were enhancing this feeling beyond levels that I could tolerate. I never, ever thought anything disrespectful about you. If any other crewmember had been on Annaris B with me, even Lieutenant Uhura, I would have said the same thing, because that was the only thing the Orions were willing to listen… But when I saw what it did to you, I knew no longer if I had been right to rescue you in that way… I was confused, hurting for you, depressed by your anger, and… jealous.”  
“What?” Kirk’s brows shot up in surprise. Spock eyed him during a long moment, then confessed in an even, but emotionally charged voice:  
“When I saw you with the Orions, and felt the reaction of my body… I was ashamed, but it made me understand something. I was not reacting to mere ‘visual stimulation of sexual nature’, as you once put it. I was reacting to you, and was angry beyond description to see the Orions abuse a body that I would have… adored, covered with most tender kisses, if I had ever been permitted…” He stopped, suddenly afraid by how far his confession had gone. Was it really a good idea to burden a freshly rescued Kirk with his unrequited feelings? He tried to probe the captain’s face for signs of emotion, but it was very hard to read, and a moment later Kirk started laughing hysterically.  
“That’s kinda funny, you know?”, he said. “My friendship with you never was platonic. Ever since the Narada, I dreamt about how it would be to feel your skilled Vulcan hands all over my skin, your lips against mine… But you were with Uhura, and I berated myself for lusting after one of my officers…”  
“My relationship with Lieutenant Uhura remained platonic, largely due to the fact that my blood, my mind, my soul had chosen you. I was not fully aware of it, because I feared to acknowledge a feeling so hopeless. You had so much success, and all of your adventures that I knew of were females. You were the youngest captain in the Fleet, you had saved the Earth, and I was an orphan, a homeless without a planet, a half-breed, a nothing…” They stared at each other for a certain time, unsure of what to say or how to feel, trying to get their bearings after their deepest secret proved to be a mutual one, their unrequited love, a shared feeling. Then Kirk suddenly laughed again, a dark, bitter laughter that filled Spock’s heart with anxiety.  
“I regret I never told you”, Kirk whispered. “Maybe we could have been happy for a while… maybe I could have known your touch, and for once given my feelings to someone who wouldn’t have trampled them… But it doesn’t matter now.” The last sentence was so broken, so hopeless, that Spock was at a loss of what to answer. But he figured that now was the moment to be honest, or things could be soon beyond repair. And if Kirk shared his feelings, then he had all the motivation in the world to make things right.  
“I do not understand why you are saying that our feelings for each other do not matter now. Mine have not changed, except that they are more fervent than they ever were. And if you do not blame me, I cannot see why…”  
“Really, Spock? You can’t see why?”, Kirk’s tone was now mocking, bordering on hysterical. “How about because I was a fuck toy of three dozen filthy Orions, who had me in more ways than I had thought were possible?… I’m disgusting, Spock, I’m so soiled, so foul… I would never let you touch me! I… I feel sorry for Bones, who has to touch me for medical reasons, and I can’t forbid him that… Wherever he touches my body, he touches a place where an Orion hand, cock, tongue, come or other fluid had been before… I couldn’t bear that you, of all people, you whom I wanted to spare this filth…” Kirk couldn’t speak further. He was trembling, his extremely pale face was beaded with sweat, his breathing came in short, desperate gasps, and Spock immediately feared that the medical alarms would set off, and McCoy would storm in, cursing him with his most refined expletives.  
“Jim, calm down. You may feel like this. It is illogical, but victims of abuse often feel soiled, although the only ones soiled are their tormentors. Whatever you feel now, you are not less pure than me or any other person on the Enterprise. For me, your body, your mind, your entire person is the most cherished treasure; is sacred. If you ever agreed to bond with me, although I do not deserve it, it would be the greatest honor and happiness to which I could aspire in my entire life.”  
“Stop! Don’t say things like this! I… I couldn’t do this to you… You deserve someone decent, pure, who could offer you a body as pristine as yours, not having served as a toy to sadistic fuckers, who managed to mark every single inch of it, inside and out…” Kirk hid his burning face in his hands and sobbed. Spock watched him cry, fearing to offer even as little comfort as an innocent reassuring touch, but certain that he had to do something for Kirk, that he couldn’t permit him to feel defiled like this any longer.  
“Jim”, he pleaded, “you are not filthy or disgusting. Let me show you…” He rose from the chair and sat closer, on the edge of Kirk’s bed. Kirk flinched away, clearly panicked, but in truth, he had nowhere to escape. Spock reached with a hand toward his face, and Kirk screamed.  
“What… what are you doing?”, he asked when Spock withdrew his hand, stopped by the reaction.  
“I cannot, will not permit you to feel like this anymore. The only ones filthy are those who did it to you, and I want you to know it for certain. Please, let me share my mind with you…”  
“No! no, no, no!” Kirk was in full panic mode now, shaking and hyperventilating, his blue eyes blown wide open in sheer terror. “You can’t look into my mind, it’s even filthier…”  
“Jim. I will not look into your mind. I merely wish to show you an image that I have in my mind. I will not probe your memories or feelings. I will show you something, using a memory that we share. This memory is… highly unpleasant, but I need you to come back to it for just a moment, so that I can show you how I feel… Please, Jim: do you not trust me at all?”  
“Well… whatever… it’s not like I’m not thinking about it all the time anyway…” Kirk sounded defeated, resigned. Spock knew that he probably only agreed to get rid of him, or maybe he hoped that Spock would be convinced by the meld that he really was as filthy and unworthy as he claimed. But Spock was going to make the most of his chance, and prove him wrong. Without waiting for Kirk to change his mind, Spock immediately took his face between his two hands, pressing gently against his meld points from both sides, to make the connection stronger. He felt gratified with the possibility to even touch Kirk’s skin, granted for the first time after the horrors of the Venora, but he meant to touch much deeper than that. He expected resistance, but found none, was simply flooded with an immense wave of self-loathing, hurt, and hopelessness. He withstood the onslaught, refraining from trying to seek out the memories that were causing it, merely conveying as best he could his compassion and support. When he was sufficiently accustomed to the intensity, he pushed forward the memory from the Venora, showing Kirk bound to a table, humiliated, naked and exposed, his abdomen marked by an inscription in Vulcan, when T’Rann started raping him brutally, watched encouragingly by all the others, whose come already smeared randomly different parts of Kirk’s body, covered his face. The memory represented the events faithfully, and Kirk flinched in overwhelming revulsion that, as Spock understood, encompassed the rapists as well as himself. Using the superior force and discipline of his mind, Spock managed to take possession of this revulsion, and redirected it solely to the Orions, while he enveloped Kirk’s mistreated figure with affection, compassion, and love. His vision of the event suddenly lost its realistic colors. Kirk’s body became a pure, diaphanous shade of white, so crystal clear that it seemed to emit a delicate, pearly aura of glimmering light. On the contrary, Kirk’s tormentors’ figures lost their vivid colors and all became deep, grey and black shadows, radiating even darker viciousness. Those two blocks of colors, although they touched and their actions were still visible in the memory, could not mingle in any manner: no matter how close T’Rann’s shadow was to Kirk, even pushing inside him, he could do nothing to tarnish the blinding whiteness, that remained true to itself despite the indignities perpetrated against it by the darkness. Thanks to the irresistible immediacy of the meld, Kirk couldn’t doubt that this was exactly how Spock was viewing the events on the Venora, and was finally convinced that Spock had not lied when he affirmed that Kirk’s entire person was pure, precious, even sacred to him. There was no way to deny this truth anymore, and there was something so liberating, so comforting, so hopeful in recognizing his value for a beloved person, that Kirk’s emotions overwhelmed him yet again, he trembled and cried real tears, but this time not of dejection and despair, but relief, maybe happiness. Spock slowly withdrew from the mental contact and asked his sobbing friend:  
“Do you believe me now when I tell you that there is nothing soiled or impure about you? Will you let me touch you without shame?”  
Kirk nodded, managing a smile through his tears, and Spock leant over him, taking him in a careful embrace, caressing and kissing his hair, letting several tears of his own add to the river flowing from his friend’s blue eyes. When Kirk finally calmed down and slumped back against the biobed, he looked exhausted, but completely transformed. His face, still wet with tears, was open and serene, as if he had not just endured serious trauma several days earlier.   
“If I had known that you viewed it like this… I wouldn’t have bothered feeling so defiled… Your opinion was the only one that mattered to me anyway, and when you watched me with them, I thought…”  
“It is understandable, Jim. But my opinion about you, my feelings for you could never falter because of something being done to you, no matter what it could be. I… cherish thee. Taluhk nash-veh k’dular, ashayam.”  
“Spock… thank you. I love you too, Spock.” They looked each other in the eyes for a long, solemn moment, before Spock gathered his courage, took Kirk’s hand and caressed it in a unique Vulcan way, then leaned forward and pressed his lips against Kirk’s, trying to convey his passion, but without making demands that at the present moment could only be too much. When he straightened back into his previous position, Spock noticed that Kirk looked completely exhausted, which between the emotions and the strain of the meld was quite understandable. Mindful of McCoy’s wrath if he should fatigue the patient excessively, Spock wanted to take leave, but Kirk stopped him, taking his hand.  
“Spock… In the meld, I sensed that you still feel uncomfortable about that Vulcan profanity they made you carve on my stomach. I would like to show you how I feel about it”, he said, pressing Spock’s hand against his temple again.  
“You are too tired, ashayam”, Spock protested. “Besides, I… do not wish to think about this moment again.”  
“Ah, so… you don’t trust me?”  
Seeing his own argument used against him, Spock reluctantly agreed, wishing that during the meld, he had hidden better his guilt about that horrible moment. When he touched Kirk’s temple, he saw the dreaded memory pushed in his direction, seen from Kirk’s perspective: pained, humiliated, violated, he was looking at Spock, hovering unhappily with the knife above his abdomen, surrounded by mockeries and obscenities, helpless to spare his friend pain, forced to cause more of it. But in Kirk’s memory, the knife turned suddenly to be a lovely red rose, that Spock was holding by the stem, elegantly brushing the soft petals against Jim’s skin, to form a Vulcan word, but instead of the demeaning slur that he had been forced to carve, he was writing “ashayam”. His movements were full of grace and tenderness, although his hands were bleeding green blood from the thorns. Moved to the core, Spock broke the contact, fearing that the strain might end up hurting Kirk, and indeed, when he looked at the young captain’s face, it seemed almost comatose with effort.   
“Jim, you really need to rest… Thank you, ashayam, it meant a lot, but now…”  
“Spock! You get upset when I accuse myself, but you… you feel so guilty… you think you failed… It’s not true, you know… What you really did was save me… Without you, I was dead on Annaris B… Or stuck as someone’s fuck toy forever… I owe you my life, Spock, and I really would like you to see it that way too…”  
The life signs monitor finally started bleeping angrily, and McCoy, who came running, looked appalled at the readings.  
“Are you out of your green-blooded mind? You exhausted him to the brink of collapse!”  
“Don’t mind him, Spock… He complains all the time…”, Kirk mumbled, and McCoy noticed immediately that something in his attitude had changed. He noticed Kirk’s hand, firmly entwined with Spock’s, without reluctance or shame, and was suddenly overjoyed.   
“Rest now, ashayam. I will remain by your side. Now, and always, if you permit me.”

Kirk was nearly overcome with pain, terrified, wishing for death and fearing what his tormentors might invent next. He felt a big, metallic object being shoved inside him, then rammed brutally several times against the raw, abused flesh, causing him new agony, but he couldn’t even scream anymore. Then suddenly, his vision cleared a little, and he saw Spock being pushed to stand next to him.   
“So, you thought you would escape…”, T’Rann commented mockingly, and Kirk’s heart sank in unimaginable despair. So, all this misery for nothing! What would they do to Spock, to punish him for escaping them? He saw T’Rann handle the Vulcan a remote control with two switches.  
“Here’s your deal, Vulcan. You press the left button and your friend’s butt explodes, smearing his insides all over the room. You refuse, and you get fucked by each and every person on this ship. What is it gonna be?”  
Kirk watched his friend eye the control hesitantly. He wanted to yell for him to push the switch, because he was as good as dead anyway, and death was so much preferable to seeing Spock violated, but he couldn’t speak. Suddenly though, Spock’s expression changed dramatically. He smiled in a wicked, vicious way that felt so alien on his face, and he said to T’Rann mockingly:  
“How is that even a choice? Do you think I would risk myself for this little whore? I already left him behind knowing full well you would torture him to death, why would I resist finishing him myself? Just… one favor, if you don’t mind. I never had an occasion to fuck him. I’d like a turn…” T’Rann nodded, and Spock inspected Kirk’s tortured body, thinking aloud: “Where do I fuck you? Your ass is stuffed with the toy, and your face is so mangled I can hardly see where the mouth should be… Still, I guess it must do… your throat still looks pretty usable… Do your best, whore, it’s gonna be your last fuck…” Nothing could compare to the devastation that Kirk felt at these words, and when Spock reached for him, it was just…  
“Jim! Jim! Shit, wake the fuck up already!”  
“Ashayam, you are safe! Come back to us!”  
Kirk opened his eyes and heard himself scream: a loud, agonized shriek of pure terror. He was shaking against the soft warmth that was holding him in a firm embrace, and he wasn’t feeling any actual pain, but his heart pounded like it was going to rip out of his chest, and his breaths came in short gasps. It was McCoy hugging him, and Spock was right behind him, looking anxious and upset. During the past several days, despite his confession and what he had showed Kirk in the meld, Spock had somehow distanced himself again. He was never far from Kirk physically, but stopped touching him, never since the confession kissed him, whether Vulcan or human fashion, and never talked about his feelings again, although he continued calling him “ashayam”. This behavior confused Kirk, and he thought it might be the reason for this particular nightmare, the worst he had ever experienced.  
“I… I think I had a nightmare”, he choked out, trying to get his breathing under control. He was safe. He had not been abandoned, but rescued. Still, the horrific images of Spock asking for a turn were right there in front of him, and he found himself unable to throw them out of his mind, even though rationally, he knew perfectly well that they couldn’t be more false.   
“Understatement of the year!”, McCoy snorted. “Your nightmare almost pushed you into a cardiac arrest… It triggered your life signs monitor alarm, so I ran here as soon as I could, to find Spock already trying to wake you up, but in vain! I pressed two tranquilizers into your system, and you were still screaming your throat raw like you were being…” he trailed off, because whatever ending he would give to this phrase, he realized it could be something that had actually happened. “I think I’m gonna put tranquilizers into your chart permanently… Will you try to have some more sleep? It’s the middle of the night, and you still need rest… I released you to your quarters only because you wanted me to, but you’re still not healed… Do you want Spock to stay with you?”  
Both McCoy and Spock were aware of a frightened glance that Kirk threw at Spock before he shakily answered:  
“Bones! Could… could you stay with me? Only till I fall asleep…”  
“Alright, kid, if this is what you want. I’ll be right here”, McCoy answered, and Spock left the room, with a “Sleep well, ashayam” thrown quietly from the door. The calm returned to this section of the ship, but not to the hearts of the three friends. While Kirk was still fighting to clear his mind from the grueling images, helped by the tranquilizer in his veins and by McCoy’s soothing babble, Spock left Jim’s quarters heartbroken. He saw that horrified look directed at him, the terror making Jim choose McCoy’s company over his, and guessed that he had been an element of the nightmare. While that wasn’t a thing he could prevent in any way, Spock realized that his behavior toward Jim had been probably different than the other man expected, especially after the mutual confession and the mindmeld that they had shared. Spock wanted nothing more than to be continually with Kirk, to touch him, kiss him and prove his affection in any way that the human would admit, but… alas, it was impossible. When he spontaneously declared his feelings to Jim, he hadn’t counted on any sort of reciprocity, and when he received it, he was momentarily so overcome with relief and happiness that he forgot several essential facts about his own physiology. He was a Vulcan, and Vulcans didn’t do casual dating: they found the right person and bonded for life. After Spock discovered that the choice he had made was reciprocated, his poor starved mind cried for the bond. Whenever he found himself far from Kirk, the emptiness in him threatened to swallow him; whenever he was close, the warm light of Kirk’s presence threatened to blind him, to make him act uncontrollably and impose a permanent mindlink on someone too vulnerable to make an informed decision. He also realized, however, that to Jim his behavior must look like rejection, and a particularly painful one after the closeness that they had shared. Hesitating to admit the truth and thus pressure Jim into accepting the bond, he also hated to make him feel neglected, abandoned, maybe even disdained again, and the dilemma was crushing him. He wasn’t even sure if he would be physically able to resist much longer the immense need to bond with the one whose mind was so compatible with his, whose own need was calling to him, whose warmth, affection and joyfulness had once made him cross the darkest abyss. Instead of meditating or resting, Spock tortured himself, going helplessly through his options again and again, and finding none to satisfy him.  
In the small hours of the ship’s morning, long before alpha shift began, he heard again the agonized scream from the adjoining quarters. Without hesitating a second, he ran over and found Kirk sitting on his bed, staring emptily ahead, and screaming from the top of his lungs.   
“Jim, wake up! You are safe!”, he exclaimed, shaking Kirk by the arm. This time, he woke almost immediately, but was visibly still shaken, so he hid his face in his hands and trembled silently. Spock longed to hug him, and imagined that Jim might also want to be soothed in this imminently human way, but he feared that if he did this now, the bond would just form all by itself, and he craved it so hard, that the only way to resist it was to escape from the room. Stumbling upon his own feet, Spock rushed for the door, but was stopped by Jim’s heartbroken call:  
“Spock! Wait!” He stopped dead in his tracks, failing to reply, but unable to move any further. “What have I done, Spock?”, Kirk asked, his voice so full of hurt that Spock instantly started hating himself again. “You… you said you… cherished me… wanted to stay by my side forever… and then suddenly you turned away, and I don’t know what I did to deserve it… Is it because I’m so pathetic, with these nightmares and flashbacks and aches and…”  
Spock was by his side in a wink of an eye.   
“You are not pathetic, ashayam, and if I were to reject you because you are hurting, what would I be but a monster? Do you consider me a monster?”  
“Of course not, and I really tried to find a valid reason, but when you became so cold, after you…”  
“It is me, Jim. It’s my Vulcan physiology that is at fault”, Spock answered, unable to hide the truth any longer. Jim could not be permitted to think that he was inferior in any way because of what happened to him.  
“What do you mean?” Kirk was surprised.  
“I cannot… date you in a casual way that humans practice, the way I was with Lieutenant Uhura. Since my blood chose you as my t’hy’la, my beloved, my mind can no longer stand the solitude of remaining in the unbonded state, while my chosen one is so close, also unbonded and… accessible, in theory. This state is intolerable for me, and I have not yet devised any viable solution. Remaining at a certain distance from you enables me to refrain from imposing a bond on you, but my entire being is craving a bond with you so much that I really cannot guarantee…” Spock stopped speaking and inspected Kirk’s face for any sing of reaction. The human looked shocked and somewhat at a loss of what to say or do, but at least he seemed relieved to learn that, rather than rejected, he was wanted… too much. “I understand that you might not wish to make such a decision at this time, or ever”, Spock told him. “You have a right to choose someone who will not pull you into a lifelong engagement, sealed with a link that sometimes even death cannot undo…”  
“It’s actually not that, Spock…” Kirk answered shyly. “I told you I love you, and I would be joined to you for life without any second thoughts, but… what exactly does a bond like this entail?”  
“Well… it is a permanent mindlink, or telepathic connection. But, Jim”, Spock amended hastily, noticing terror in Kirk’s eyes, “it wouldn’t mean that I could see all your memories or hear all your thoughts. Simply, if you wanted to, you could send thoughts or images my way, and I would read them without necessity to speak, even over distance. I would be aware of your strongest emotions, as you would be of mine. Such link is often indestructible. You can shut it down, hide it for a certain time, but it causes discomfort to both bondmates. Being bonded can be an extremely gratifying experience, for a human as well, I believe: it gives the bondmates a permanent sense of company, support and acceptance, takes away solitude… I am not trying to advertise it to you, Jim, but I do not think you should be afraid of it, either…”  
“I’m not afraid, Spock”, Kirk protested immediately. “I told you that I love you. That means I’m ready for any kind of involvement, also for life. I want it as much as you do. It’s just that… I… for the moment, I can’t… I wouldn’t… I mean, I’d like to, but my body… You know, Spock, I find you really hot, and there were times when I could hardly think about anything else than seducing you, but right now… I wouldn’t be able to…” He hang his head, defeated. Spock tried to make sense of what he was trying to say, and then he suddenly understood.  
“Jim! You think that a bond requires sexual activity.”  
“Obviously. Bondmates are mates, right? They must be faithful, so they can’t find release outside of the bond… If I bonded with you, you would be stuck with a person unable to satisfy you…” Kirk’s head hang even lower and he sounded so unhappy that Spock felt his heart sink again.  
“Ashayam, I would not be ‘stuck’ with you! Understand this: you are my t’hy’la, and if you refuse the bond, I will remain unbonded, unwilling and unable to choose anyone else. My entire essence craves now for a mindlink, which is the most essential part of a Vulcan bond. The union of the bodies, while eminently desirable, can wait until you are ready.”  
“What… what if I’m never ready? What if they destroyed this part of me for good? I couldn’t possibly let you bond for life with a person who isn’t even sure if he’ll ever be able to go beyond holding hands! Come on! God, I’m so pathetic…”  
“Jim… As long as I can be with you, share a mindlink with you, share your life, this is of no consequence to me”, Spock assured him. He reached out and circled Kirk with his arms. He was now sure of just one thing: he wanted the bond, and was reasonably certain that Jim wanted it too. Of course, what he said about sex being irrelevant was true only to a point. There was the great exception, the pon farr, once in seven years. But mentioning it now would likely only scare Jim away, and Spock wanted the bond so much, needed it so badly after years of solitude, grief and emptiness… He was sure that before pon farr actually hit him, Kirk would have time to heal and regain his emotional balance and appetite for sex many times over. With Spock’s loving presence by his side, and inside his head, he would associate Spock with love and safety to a point where even more demanding touch wouldn’t be threatening anymore… Spock’s tender, reverent caresses would manage to wash away the dreaded Orions’ presence from Kirk’s memory, body, and mind forever, and then there would be nothing separating them anymore. “Do you want it, Jim?” he breathed into Kirk’s ear.  
“Yes”, came the trusting answer. “Even now, if you can do it.”  
Spock could. As he had suspected, his mind, powerful and disciplined, but strained to the limits of endurance after horribly prolonged periods of emptiness, darkness, and suffering, extremely hungered for the bond, and for this particular bondmate whom it had chosen, and then had to watch at the hands of others – this wonderfully complicated mind was able of reaching for the bond without any help, ceremony or preparation. Spock barely touched Kirk’s meldpoints and thought about the bond – as there was no resistance from the other side, suddenly all the emptiness was gone, replaced by a beautiful, steady, dazzling light. He didn’t shield his euphoria in any way, on the contrary, made sure that it reached Kirk with its full impact, and was rewarded with a similar feeling from the human, of slightly lesser intensity, delicately colored by uncertainty in front of such novel form of contact.   
//Have no fear, Jim. I am with you, as I shall always be. Always loving, never hurting. Taluhk nash-veh k’dular, ashayam. I will never fail you again, never betray you, never leave you behind. Now that we are bonded, it would also mean betraying myself.//  
//Thank you, Spock. And I will never betray you in any way.//  
The moment was so intense, with the newly created bond dazzling and sparkling inside their heads, that Spock suddenly wished to make it even more so. He leaned over Kirk and took his hand, then joined their lips in a chaste, tender kiss. As starved as his mind had been, his body reacted to the touch as if it were an electric jolt, and Kirk felt the sudden flow of desire through the bond. His reaction was very sobering: he flinched back violently, and waves of panic and revulsion flooded the bond as well as grueling imaged of him with the Orions, appropriating places in his body that he hadn’t even suspected they existed.   
//Forgive me, ashayam. I got carried away, but I shall be more attentive//, Spock projected immediately, sending waves of reassurance and affection in Kirk’s direction. However, it took much longer to calm Kirk down than it had taken to upset him. Spock’s desire, on the other hand, although he mastered it and managed to shield it from the bond, did by no means vanish. For the first time, doubt knocked at Spock’s heart: ‘What if I lied to him after all? What if pon farr is not as far as I assumed? What if I have no time to prepare him for it before it hits?...’   
But these were questions that Spock would ask himself at a later time. Now, it was a moment to be happy, to enjoy the mindlink, the shared love, the fact that the finally exorcised emptiness within him was replaced by a promise of peace, acceptance, and fullness. With the basic needs of his soul finally satisfied, Spock welcomed the return to a world of balance and logic, shared with his rescued t’hy’la, whose presence in his life and mind was giving it a whole new meaning.


End file.
